Spider
by kestraTroi7
Summary: He called her once a month, starting on the fifteen year anniversary of her mother's death. He had been using her fear to taunt her from afar about solving the case, except now he was going after her. Gets a bit graphic in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Castle or anything associated with it. Only the characters I've invented in this fanfiction.**

**Summary: He called her once a month, the Spider, starting on the fifteen year anniversary of her mother's death. He was taunting her to solve the case. He would destroy her.**

**The story is set before Knockdown, but just a few weeks or so before, and will slowly work its way there **

Spider

She fired six shots in rapid succession, emptying the barrel of the gun she carried. Had a live person been the intended target, they would certainly be long dead. As it happened, the bullets had torn through the paper targets in the downstairs facility she often retreated to when the calls came.

_12.00 Wednesday June 16__th__ 2010 (seven months ago)_

_Kate's mobile vibrated in her coat pocket. Mumbling, 'excuse me,' to Castle and the boys, she made to answer her phone with her customary, 'Beckett,' but the caller spoke first._

"_Kate Beckett?" A male voice said. Judging from his harsh, deep tone he was well over her age._

"_Yes."_

"_Your mother's killer is still waiting for justice." Kate's heart skipped a beat. She stood up, feeling disoriented, moving to the empty break room, closing the door behind her. She caught Castle's curious gaze, but ignored it._

_Montgomery had taught her to identify unknown callers as soon as possible if it was possible they had information pertinent to a case. Her mother's murder wasn't just a case though. It had once been her strongest reason for living. "Who is this?"  
"That's not relevant. But your mother is. Don't you love her? Aren't you going to find her killer?" Kate felt her airway constrict. She leaned against the wall of the break room. She could scarcely breathe. She managed to strengthen her resolve enough to vocalize her next sentence._

"_Identify yourself or do not contact me again." Kate dreaded the outcome that the caller would hang-up. She needed to know who he was. Did he know her mother personally? Did her know _her _personally?_

"_I am the Spider." Feeling tears sting her eyes, she forced herself to respond as memories of the time she had been bitten by a spider all those years ago flooded back to her. This was absurd._

"_What do you want from me?" She had been thirteen. Her mother had taken care of her at the hospital. Kate had passed out when the venom from the pincers had made its way in to her left arm. Since then, she almost screamed upon seeing them, memorising the entire glossary of poisonous spiders inhabiting the New York City area when she was fifteen… when her mother had died. He couldn't possibly know, could he?_

"_Until next month."_

_The line went dead._

_Kate collapsed in to a chair just as Castle entered the room._

"_You okay, Beckett? Who called?"_

"_Huh? Oh, no one."_

_Castle noisily rummaged for a clean cup, and placed it under the nozzle of the espresso machine, all the while watching her face closely._

"_If you say so then." He handed her the filled cup._

She heard the door opening. It was Lanie.

"Look girl, you gonna tell me what's going on, or do I have to figure it out for myself?"

Kate pulled down the paper target, scrutinising her effectiveness. One of her bullets hadn't entered the innermost target. Scolding herself internally, she prepared the next target and loaded her gun.

"Beckett!" Lanie was insistent.

"I don't want to talk about it, Lanie. I appreciate you coming down here and all, I really do, but I don't want to say anything right now."

Lanie's concerned, searching look was matched only in intensity by the way in which Kate fired her next shots. All three sliced clean through the paper in the inner ring.

"Castle's worried about you. He asked me to come by. Said you stormed out after a phone call, headed straight down here."

Silence. Another two shots echoed throughout the room.

"Please, Lanie. Just go." Kate couldn't tell her. Lanie would think she was insane, and she would certainly make her tell the Captain, who in turn would probably ask her to take some personal time off. She couldn't handle that. She had to work.

Reaching over to place a comforting hand over Kate's before she left, Lanie forced a smile, "You need anything at all Beckett, and you call me. Got that?"

Beckett nodded.

The door slammed shut behind the Medical Examiner, leaving Kate alone. After hearing Lanie's footsteps echoing up the stairs she dropped her NYPD weapon, finally allowing the ghosts of the many tears that had soaked through her pillow the night before to touch her eyes.

_12.00 Friday July 16__th__ 2010 (six months ago)_

_Kate's mobile rang. She inhaled sharply, considering ignoring the call. She had tried, unsuccessfully to trace the call last month, and had been hoping it would be a one-off experience. Unpleasant to say the least, she had been unable to shake off her co-worker's concerned glances for the rest of the day. She had been dreading the possibility of this moment for a month. Ryan flipped through case files, oblivious to the sound, God bless him, while Esposito raised his eyebrows at her, his mind no doubt considering far dirtier possibilities. Castle watched her reaction to the call, opening his mouth to say something, then closing it again as he noticed her agitation. It had been a hell of a day. Their prime suspect hadn't breathed a word throughout the interrogation, the precinct elevators had broken down and Lanie had called in sick, leaving the delightful Perlmutter to take her place._

_She looked down at the small device in her hand. _Perhaps it isn't him,_ her mind whispered to her, although she knew, somehow, that it was. Flipping open her phone, she responded to the call. "Beckett."_

"_Why haven't you found him yet? Was your wellbeing more important than finding your own mother's killer? Why did you stop looking?" She gasped at his voice. He was practically shouting at her. She pressed the phone closer to her ear determined not to let Castle or Esposito hear the conversation. She stood up abruptly, pressed her hand over the mouthpiece and told the two, "It's my dad. Do you mind if I take this call outside?" Receiving unconcerned nods, she almost sprinted to the stairwell.  
"Please. Who are you?" She uttered, once safely behind thick doors, hurrying down the steps._

"_I told you. I am the Spider." Kate felt her skin crawl. The way he said the word made her feel as though she was back in that hospital bed, with the feel of the poison coursing through her veins, her limbs weak and unresponsive._

She forced herself to be strong for her mother's sake. "Do you know who killed my mother?"

"Why? Haven't you figured it out yet?" The Spider paused and let out a rasping laugh. Kate felt as though she was about to faint. She grasped at the railings for support. "Talk to me. Maybe I can help. That's what the police do, isn't it? Interrogate." His mocking of their procedure made her want to yell in to the receiver, but she sensed that he was trying to make her lose the little control she still had over herself.  
"Why are you doing this?"  
He laughed again. He was laughing at her. She wanted to scream profanity at him till he dropped his mindless act and told her what he wanted. "Doing what?"

"_Taunting me. If you know who killed her, _tell me._" She filled the last two words with all the conviction she could muster. She heard her own voice and knew she sounded far too vulnerable. She stopped descending the stairs. She had lost track of where she was. Sliding to the floor she listened to his reply._

"You won't get anywhere with manners like those, Katie – "

"Don't_ call me Katie." He was using her parents name for her. He had made already made her feel dizzy with fear and revulsion. Was he trying to make her feel sick with all the memories as well?_

"_Why? Your mother did. Are you afraid of her now? Or perhaps just of how you've failed her." He was merciless, the Spider. He would destroy her, finishing the job that those sleepless nights and skipped meals searching painstakingly for any hidden clue pertaining to her mother's case had barely failed to complete._

"_Please, stop." She knew she sounded pathetic, but she couldn't help herself. Tears slid down her cheeks. She tried to brush them away, but her fingers were trembling and she was barely managing to hold on to the phone._

"_You're weak, like your father. He became an alcoholic at her death. Pathetic." She let the tears flow freely. There was a noise above her, and she heard the door open. Several flights above her she heard two men moving down the stairs, talking. Ryan and Esposito. She forced herself to stand and mustered all the strength she could._

"_Stop!"_

_Another hollow laugh echoed through the receiver, crackling with the bad reception of her position below ground level. "You're just like him. Weak. You stopped looking for her killer because you know you can't find him. It will destroy you though. I will destroy you." He was right. He was repeating her thoughts from only moments before._

"_Please." Kate's shell of strength was shattered at that moment. She collapsed to the floor and her phone slid from her hands, reverberations sounding from the cemented walls, but not before she heard the muted reply._

"_Until next month."_

_She heard the boys running faster, having heard the noise. Ryan reached her first and ran to her side._

"_Beckett? You okay? Are you hurt?"_

_Esposito caught up with him rapidly. It was obvious that Ryan had expected to ever see her in such a condition. Esposito was more composed._

"_I'm okay, Ryan." He offered her a hand and hoisted her to her feet. "Thanks."_

_Ryan held her arm for a moment, steadying her as she swayed slightly. Esposito frowned, looking concerned._

"_Should I call Lanie to take a look at you? You look pale, Beckett."_

_Beckett blinked back tears. She couldn't cry in front of her boys. "No. It's okay. I'll go and see her now."_

"_What happened?" Esposito again. He had always been protective of her. He and Ryan both. The older brothers she'd never had._

_Kate wanted nothing more than to fall in to his arms and let him support her like she knew he always would. "Nothing. It's just that the case… it's been tough."_

"'_Kay." Esposito said, sounding mildly convinced. In all honesty, Kate couldn't bring herself to care._

"_Watch out for yourself, Beckett." Ryan said in parting as he and Esposito opened the door leading outside the precinct._

"_Hang on, Ryan, Esposito!" Kate called. The two looked back at her questioningly. "Could you not tell Castle about this." Her voice broke as she spoke the sentence._

_Esposito regarded her sympathetically. They all broke down sometimes. Some of the murders would always affect them worse than others. "You got it, boss."_

"_Thanks." With that she walked down the first few steps to the morgue, but as the door Ryan and Esposito had exited slammed shut, she headed back up to her usual level of the building. Her head pounded painfully with what the Spider had said. _I will destroy you. _His words rang through her mind, over and over. She wouldn't be able to stop him alone. Hell, she wouldn't be able to stop him at all._

_Yet as she reached her table in the workspace, and Castle saw her and smiled only the way he could a shadow of doubt ran through her mind. Maybe. Just maybe._

**A/N: Is it worth continuing? Depending on whether I get a positive response on this chapter, I'd like to continue to January 2011 (Knockdown!) with the phone call flashbacks and depending on how much of the case gets solved in that episode, I'll continue or leave it there.**

**This is my first fan fiction; so if it's not up to scratch, feel free to let me know. I'm an Australian though, so if the British spelling is getting to you Americans, I'm sorry, but there isn't a lot I can do without it looking foreign and misspelt to me.**

**Finally, a note for Caskett lovers: I am rooting for them to get together too, but I'm not planning on an immediate romance in this story. Maybe later. This story is written for all the characters – I want to include lots of Esposito, Ryan, Lanie and Montgomery's relationship with Beckett in particular. I will, of course, make Castle the one that Beckett can lean on when it gets really tough on her.**


	2. Chapter 2

I just watched Knockdown and can't let it go by without mention. It was an incredible 42 minutes! _The _most incredible 42 minutes. Wow… On another note, I realised I made a mistake in the summary with the fifteen years upon watching the episode – it seems her mother died twelve years ago. I don't know where I got fifteen years from, but I'm going to just go with it.

By the way, I feel like I should warn you that this chapter is Josh and Kate. I promise he won't be around for much longer though (1, maybe 2 chapters max.). I'm not someone who likes to cut characters out of stories for convenience's sake so I'm going to play their relationship out. He isn't portrayed in a negative light though, it that's what you're looking for.

Just to recap, the italics are flashbacks and the normal writing is present-day (season 3, post Poof! You're dead, pre Knockdown.)

Kate stumbled up the stairs to Josh's apartment. He had offered to let her stay by until she could move in to her apartment. It had seemed a waste of money to pay for another month at a hotel the way she had been doing when she only had a fortnight of homelessness left. She was grateful to him, but that was all. They both knew that it wouldn't last and that when she left, she wouldn't be coming back.

"What are you doing home so early?" Josh whispered in her ear as he ran his fingers through her hair.

She looked away. "Montgomery. He sent me home. Said we'd have a new lead tomorrow and it'd be better if we all got some sleep." And that he couldn't have her using up all her bullets seven times over in the firing room.

"Seems reasonable. It's only, what?" Josh fondled her arm, finding her watch with his eyes. "Half-past eight. Seems far too early to go home, doesn't it."

Josh wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her in to an embrace. It wasn't filled with passion. Or love. It was a hug to let her know he was there and that he understood. They both had their dealings with death every day and they both knew the agony of losing a life to that dreadful enemy. He would write if off on his reports, just as she did on hers, shrugging it off when their co-workers offered sympathy, pretending they weren't bothered. But every time, every single time, the doubt would grow.

"Josh?" She pulled away from him, fixing her gaze on a point over his shoulder.

He let her go immediately, sensing her discomfort. "What is it Kate?"

"Do you ever wonder what the point is?" She caught his confused look and hurried to explain her context. "The point of what we do. Every life we save. Why does it even matter? They'll all die. _We'll _die. Why does it even matter?"

Josh had kept pulling her closer while she had been talking. Now he led her over to his bed and laid her down on it gently, lying beside her and wrapping his arms around her shoulders. "Do you see those holes in the wall over there?" He asked, pointing at the wall that was opposite them. There were around twenty holes with about the same diameter as a pencil, brutally marked against the white.

"Yeah." She wondered where this was leading. "I was going to ask you about that. What are they?"

He twisted in the bed and pulled open the drawer of his bedside table, grabbing what Kate thought to be a dart. "I used to play out late with my friends back when I was in college. I had this one specially made, infused with metal. Every time I lose a patient, I throw this at the wall as hard as I can."

"How many?"

"Nineteen."

Kate grimaced. "I'm sorry."

Josh shook his head, "The point is that we all feel that way. We all wonder sometimes whether we make any difference at all. Don't beat yourself up over it, Kate. What you do, it _is _worth something. It all has a point."

"I see their families though. They're in so much pain. I force them to think of what their husband, or their wife, or their son, or their daughter did that could have gotten them killed. I'm the one that tells them," her voice broke, and Josh wrapped his fingers around hers, "I'm the one that tells them that their loved one has been murdered." Her voice was icy at the last word. She looked at Josh, "Tell me, Josh, where is the good in that? I catch one murder, easing the pain of one family and I come back the next day and there is another, and another, and another."

"I'd forgotten that you only get to see that side of it. I keep forgetting how much luckier I am." Kate looked in to the creases of the dark jacket wrapped over his chest, not really seeing. "You've never got to tell a family that their little girl or boy has been saved, or that their husband or wife will make a full recovery from whatever injuries they might have sustained. You stand there, and you watch the relief seep in to their eyes. Every single time, I know that there is nothing I would have rather done in that time than save that person's life."

She said nothing in reply, so he lightly pulled up her chin so that she was looking in to his eyes. "You may not have that kind of gratification with your job, but every time you convict a criminal, you're saving someone else's metaphorical wall," Josh glanced over at the nineteen holes in his wall again. Nineteen lives. "Maybe even your own. Tell me that's not worth it, Kate."

She couldn't bring herself to say anything. Josh seemed to understand though. He let her slide in between his covers, still dressed, and caressed her cheek with his hand until she fell in to a restless sleep.

_12.00 Monday August 16__th__ 2010 (five months ago)_

_Esposito and Ryan had been looking up something on their computers, and judging from the noises they'd been making, Kate was sure she didn't want to know what it was. It had been easy in that kind of an environment to slip away to her car for a few minutes. If anyone asked, she had been collecting her scarf, conveniently left draped over her car seat. She missed _him _though. Castle would have summoned up all sorts of possibilities of as to why she was gallivanting off downstairs at midday while they had a case. Beneath the façade, she knew he cared about her though. It had comforted her to know that someone, other than her father, truly cared so much. But it had been a façade, and now he was in the Hamptons and she was here, waiting for the call to come. Sure enough, it did, within ten seconds of the hour. She had sworn to herself that she wouldn't let him best her this time._

"_Beckett." She answered automatically, shivering, as she unlocked her car, climbing in and wrapping her hands in the woollen material of the scarf that her father had given her, drawing on the strength it gave her._

"_Ah. First ring? Were you excited to speak with me, Katie?" It was the third time she was hearing his voice, but she couldn't prevent a shiver from crawling over her skin when she heard him call her 'Katie'._

"_Cut the small talk. Tell me what you know about my mother's case."_

_Damn him. Why couldn't he just do as she asked? She would have done almost anything to get him inside the interrogation room. "But why would I want to do that? We're having such a spectacular time talking as it is."_

"_Tell me what you know, or this conversation is over." She knew she was bluffing. There was no way in hell she'd terminate the call. He knew it as well._

"_No. You tell me, Detective Beckett, how does it feel to have lived a lifetime without her?"_

_Kate's heart skipped a beat. She knew exactly what he was talking about; the morning of the first call the same thought had been going through her mind, over and over, distracting her from work. She felt her best option was to feign uncertainty though. "What?"_

"_Come on, Detective. How old were you when your mother was murdered?"  
This time, she only managed to whisper the answer under her breath. _He knew._ "Fifteen."  
"That's right. And here we are, fifteen years on. The fifteen years she's missed of you growing up. The fifteen years you've allowed her killer to roam free. Tell me, Katie, you've caught so many other killers, why not this one? Don't you care anymore?" It wasn't that he'd caught on to exactly what she'd been thinking this time. It wasn't even that he used her pet name. It was his harsh statement of truth. She had put over thirty killers behind bars in her time at the 12__th__ Precinct. How could her mother's killer have eluded her when so many others hadn't been able to? The only explanation was that she herself was at fault._

"_I can't do this." Kate murmured to herself._

"_That's right. You can't. You ought to give up now, while you're still alive to do it." Despite her previous statement, his words made the anger well up inside of her, overpowering the hopelessness._

"_What the hell do you want?" She almost spat the words in her fury._

"_I am the Spider. I don't want anything from you. You're just another insect trapped in my web. I've simply got to reel you in, and collect my prize." The image conjured in her mind made her feel nauseous. _American house web. Black widow. Furrow spider. Wolf spider. _She chanted the species in her head, trying to calm herself down._

"_Collect your prize from whom?" Try as she might, she was again unsuccessful in concealing the slight quiver in her voice._

"_Oops! I've said too much. Until next month."_

"_Wait! Please." She was too late. The line had gone dead. She considered whether she should tell the Montgomery or even Esposito or Ryan. Montgomery was a definite no, he was her friend, but he was first and foremost her captain, and she knew it would be his duty to grind her for details and demand to know why she hadn't told him earlier. Esposito and Ryan she knew she could trust with anything, neither would tell the Captain about it unless it got really bad. She knew there was one person she wouldn't hesitate to tell should he have been around._

"_Goddamnit!" She slammed her hand against the wheel, receiving alarmed glances from people walking across the street who passed her by._

"Kate! Kate, wake up!" Who was that? It was male. God, no, it wasn't him was it? She felt something moving across her forehead and almost screamed before realising it was only Josh's fingers. It was only Josh._ Only Josh. Only Josh. _She chanted the phrase over and over till her breathing evened.

She opened her eyes, and felt the layer of sweat coating her body. "What time is it?" Blinking tiredly, she tried to shake the nightmare… memory… from her mind. Her psychologist from back then – back almost ten years ago now had told her never to confuse nightmare with memory. Right now, precious few moments of her life seemed to be anything else.

"It's before four. You should get back to sleep." That was another thing about Josh. He would never push her for details. For a surgeon who rarely had to look his patients in the eye before he started to operate, he had a gift for reading people. He had known her for over a month, and it was long enough to know that he had to wait for her to open up to him, and they both knew, deep within themselves, that it would never happen.

Kate shook her head. "I'm going to take a shower. I could never get back to sleep with all this sweat covering me." She pulled the dark red shirt she'd been wearing the day over her head and left it in the laundry, feeling slightly cooler with only the thin white tank top she was wearing underneath.

"Okay. But I need another two hours before I can function, even heavily medicated with caffeine, as you always seem to be."

She almost laughed at his joke. He always knew how to make her feel even slightly better. Despite his charms though, he could hardly rival Castle's seemingly unconscious ability to see the humour in every situation. Damn it! Why was she even _thinking _about Castle right now?

She grabbed some clothes – the first ones she touched – from her still packed suitcase and purposefully walked over to the bathroom. The sight that greeted her eyes was horrendous.

She tried to back away and leave the room but she ended up banging in to the mirror next to the door. She screamed as she saw the reflection of the ghastly scene. Writhing away from the image, she struck the mirror with her hand, shattering the image and slicing arm painfully on the broken shards just as Josh came rushing in to the room.

"Holy – " he started to curse, but as soon as he saw her bleeding hand and glassy eyes, he ignored the rest of the room, scooping her up and taking her back to the bedroom.

The image of the bathroom was seared in to her mind. The square shower cubicle in the right corner of the room… The corpse of a funnel web spider dangling off the showerhead from a piece of black string… The translucent window on the opposite side of the room swung wide open… Her own blood dripping on to the mirror as a shard of it fell, infusing her with the image it was reflecting…

"I'm going to take you to the hospital. You're losing quite a bit of blood." Josh shook her slightly, trying to make her look at him. "I don't want any arguments, Kate." Josh said clearly, breaking in to her memory trying to make her understand while in her obvious state of shock. She was aware of what he had said but unable to process the meaning of it or if it even had any significance.

Josh grabbed his keys and his phone when a vibration sounded. It was her phone. She had received a text message. Feeling the fear well up inside her at the timing, she whispered, "Give that to me."

"We need to get you to the hospital, Kate." Josh argued.

"_Give that to me." _She said more forcefully, and he handed the mobile to her, placing it in her uncut left hand. She fumbled with the necessary button to view the image for several seconds, hesitating, before she clicked _View._

_HOW DID YOU LIKE MY GIFT?_ was the message that flashed across the small mobile screen. Kate looked at it for a moment, reading it several times before sprinting to the toilet and throwing up the little that she had eaten the previous day.

A/N: So you see why I couldn't change it to twelve years? I wanted that line about having lived another lifetime since her mother's death, and twelve years would make Beckett twenty-four, which she obviously isn't. Also, on every fan-site I've visited, there seems to be a deep hostility towards Josh, the main reason for which seems to be that he isn't Castle. I don't think that's so fair on him (even though I feel exactly the same way), so I wanted to give his character more of a positive backing. I didn't really want to use Josh, but it seemed too intimate for Castle (at this point) or someone else at the precinct. I wanted a character that I could manipulate without it being unfaithful to the character (even if it is purely because we've only seen him in one episode thus far). I do feel like I've made him a little too much of an ideal man, but Beckett doesn't want him and they both know it won't last, so who cares?

According to a friend, the Funnel spider is called a Funnel Weaver in America, but it's a Funnel Web in Australia. I can't bring myself to google it cause I'm scared of what pictures will come up, but I'm going to stick with Funnel Web. Maybe they're a bit small to see dangling from a string, but I wanted a 'ritualistic murder' feel to it. Use your imagination and blow it up in size (unless you hate spiders, like me and are trying to discard the image from your mind as quickly as you can).


	3. Chapter 3

"I really wish you would have considered visiting the hospital. I'm not really qualified to do this anymore," Josh kept talking, trying to distract her as he threaded the needle through her arm. She had taken something she had already forgotten the name of to numb the pain as he stitched the wound closed.

After it had become apparent that she wasn't going to tell him what the text message said or who it was from, he had asked her again and again to have her hand looked at by a professional. She had declined each time, her responses getting shorter and shorter, and finally, exasperated, he examined it himself and told her it would have to be stitched closed, agreeing to do it himself.

"Kate. What the hell was that in my bathroom? That spider hanging from the showerhead… Did you know anything about that?" Josh asked, and although he was trying to conceal the anger in his voice, she heard it – and felt it, he accidentally yanked the thread to tight, burning her arm.

Wincing in pain, Kate replied under her breath, "I didn't know he would do that." It was the longest sentence she had spoken since running from the bathroom almost half an hour ago now. Josh wanted to call the police, but Kate had bluntly told him not to do so. This would have nothing to do with Josh once she had moved out of his house. But really, she didn't want Ryan or Esposito poking around in her said boyfriend's room, not to mention the Captain or Castle knowing anything about the Spider, both the literal one in Josh's bathroom, and… the other one…

"Who?" Seeing her dazed expression he repeated himself, "You didn't know who would do that, Kate?" She could tell he was trying to be gentle, yet he seemed furious with the situation. She could hardly blame him. In fact, she knew it was her fault. If she hadn't been staying with him, it wouldn't have happened.

"No-one. I was confused," she said, shaking her head. The lie came easily. She had been doing that a lot lately, lying. Lying to Josh, lying to Montgomery, lying to the boys, lying to Lanie, lying to her father… Her father had seemed to sense a general discomfort, but he had let her sort it out as she always had been able to do. There was one person she couldn't seem to lie to though. When Castle asked her questions that would have caused her to retreat in to her mind had it been any other person, she found herself unable to not tell the truth. That wasn't to say she told him anything more than she had told anyone else. She would just sit there, looking at him blankly, silent, and he could sense, somehow, that something was wrong.

A sharp tap on her shoulder brought reality crashing back down on her. "All done Kate. Don't put too much pressure on it for the week or so." He stroked her cheek gently. "I don't think you should go to work today. It was a lot of blood."

"I'm going." Her tone left no room for argument.

Josh sat down next to her. "Okay, then. I'm thinking of staying for a while and cleaning up the… mess." She knew he meant her blood on the floor. And that hanging obscenity.

She shook her head. "Your shift starts at seven. You should start heading to the hospital. It's further away than the 12th. I'll take care of the clean-up, I have at least another half-hour." She said this without looking at him. She _had _to be the one who cleaned up. She was sure he had left something else in the room.

Josh, from the look in his eyes, wasn't going to make it easy for her to look for the clues. "Kate…"

"No, Josh. I'm moving in to my new apartment tomorrow, and I haven't done anything around here to help you out. I'll take care of this."

Josh looked in to her eyes searchingly for a moment, and then he nodded. "I'll be on my way then. See you tonight?"

"Tonight, then."

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, grabbed his bag, coat, wallet and keys and headed out the door, pulling it shut behind him.

As soon as she heard his car engine roaring to life, she exhaled, releasing the breath she'd been holding in. In that moment she wanted nothing more than to curl in to a ball and cry herself in to oblivion. To grab one of the knives lying on the kitchen bench and… _no._

Suddenly cognizant of the fact that her breathing had gotten faster, she stood up and walked over to the bathroom, feeling a brief light-headedness as she moved. She stopped before she reached the door, hesitant to cross the threshold between what used to be a fairly complacent reality and nightmare.

She checked the time. 6:20. She was officially on duty at 7:30, but wanted to get to the precinct at about 7:15 to shower in the change rooms – more to try and wash away everything that had happened this morning and in the last seven months than any sweat or dirt that might have found its way on to her body. That still gave her almost forty minutes to sort through the scene though. She tried to compartmentalise what she was seeing. This was a crime scene like any other. She ran through a checklist in her mind. What was the evidence that this was a crime scene? The window was open – there were clear signs of breaking and entering at the very least… and the text message. Secure? Tick, Josh was gone. She had to collect the evidence. The mirror was shattered and she would just clean that up, like she had told Josh she would. Yet before she could start to touch that, she would have to deal with that Funnel Web. God, why had he done this?

_28__th__ September 1993_

"_I got you a new hat, Katie, the same green as your cardigan, just like what you wanted." Joanna Beckett walked in to her daughter's room. Kate ran up to her before she could take two steps._

"_Wow, you're right! It's perfect. Maddie and I were just talking on the phone, says she wants to catch a movie this weekend, can I go?"_

"_Sure, sweetie. Just make sure that Maddie doesn't bring any boys with her this time." Her daughter was growing up quickly, a little too quickly for her taste._

_Kate looked at her mother, irritated, "He was her _brother_, mom! They weren't about to do anything together."_

"_Whoa! What's that you're saying, Katie?" Her father good-naturedly called from the living room._

"_Nothing, dad." She rolled her eyes at her mother, who smiled weakly in response. "Mom, bring the bag over here, so I can try on the hat."_

_While Kate rummaged through her wardrobe, pulling out the green jacket – definitely _not _a cardigan! – her mother cut the price tag off her new item of clothing. Although Kate's sigh of appreciation brought her happiness, Joanna had never understood the fashion crazes that modern girls went through. For her, hats were a shield from the sun, nothing more._

"_Thanks, mom! Wow, you're right! It is _exactly _the same shade. Maddie is going to be so jealous!" Kate laughed. Joanna took that as her cue to leave the room._

_She and Jim would have a few hours to themselves now. Usually after Kate had new clothes, she would go through all her old ones and see which ones – _

"_AAARGH! Mom!" Joanna ran back to the room. Kate was screaming. There was a medium sized black spider crawling over her arm._

"_JIM!" Joanna called, as she grabbed her daughter's flailing arm. She took a pair of scissors lying on Kate's table and managed to force the spider off, stamping on it as Jim rushed in to the room._

"_Jo?" Jim said. Joanna shook her head, indicating he stay quiet._

_Her daughter's face was lowered. "It's okay, sweetie. It's okay. It's not on you anymore. You're okay."_

_Kate looked at her mother, pale-faced, "It bit me, mom," she managed to whisper, her face contorted in pain. Joanna pulled her daughter close to her as she suddenly went limp._

"_Call an ambulance!" Jim was already sprinting to the phone as Joanna held her daughter, begging her to wake up._

Kate shuddered. What had happened that day had always been so vague in her mind. She couldn't seem to be able to tell anything past the pain, almost like trying to see through a foggy window. When she had been lying in that hospital bed she had gotten her mother to tell her what had happened over and over until she could see the scene play out in her mind. There was one detail, however, that she had only learnt after the incident.

The spider that had bitten her had been a Funnel Web spider.

_How the damned hell could he have known that?_ She tried to reason with herself, he could have chosen that species of spider by chance. How many species of spider were there? _Too many, _her mind replied dryly. He knew that about her as well. How much did he know?

Moving back to the kitchen, she pulled out a pair of rubber gloves from a drawer under the sink. She also took the biggest plastic zip-lock bag she could find – about the size of a piece of paper – and an unused sponge.

When she returned, she detached herself completely from what she was doing. She could not think about what she was doing, for if she did, God only knew how much one person could throw up. This was another crime scene… just another crime scene. She was going to find just another perp. and she was going to lock him away. That was all. But it wasn't.

She took a breath, calming herself. First, she would do what her job had taught her. Then she would go with her gut, so to speak, and look for what he had left her. She _felt _that he had left something behind. Something just for her. Something that only she would be able to find.

Thinking quickly, she considered where DNA or fingerprints would be, should the perpetrator have left any behind. Although she doubted he had, considering he had been evading her for over seven months, she had to try. She owed that much to her mother, and to herself. Ideally, she would have called CSU down here, but the phrase, _spider homicide, _made her laugh harshly, despite her current state. She supposed she could call them down for entering the home and leaving something behind, a threat, but then she would be forced to explain the calls and she couldn't do that.

Working deftly, she untied the string. She felt as though the spider was watching her from its position, and she yelped in fright when she finally untied the string and the spider moved with it, bouncing off her wrist. Barely able to function, she grabbed the zip-lock bag and shoved the string and the spider inside. _Red widow. Trapdoor spider. Orb weaver. Golden silk spider. _She tried to breathe evenly. _Dwarf spider. Cellar spider. _Breathe.

Checking her watch, she saw it was about 6:45. Fifteen minutes, that gave her, to clean her blood off the floor and look through the scene after.

This part, she didn't mind so much. Blood she saw at crime scenes. Blood was an unavoidable part of her job. Knowing that one of the spiders was locked away in a plastic bag three rooms away and the other couldn't be watching her right now at least, she was able to breathe more easily. Her hand throbbed badly, and she knew she was going to have a hard time keeping Castle at bay today. He would go wild speculating about her injury. _I don't know Castle, I just scratched it and Josh dressed it up for me. _She could already imagine Castle's brow furrowing as she said Josh's name. It always did, for whatever reason. She pushed the thought aside. _Not now._

She had the floor taken care of within five minutes. She had rushed through it, and her hand would suffer later in the day through her paperwork, but there was no competition between the two. This was the more important.

While she had worked to get the spider, she had scrutinised the entire room. If he had left fingerprints, it would likely have been on the window and on the showerhead. Josh would probably notice if he saw those two items missing when he got home though… not to mention Ryan and Esposito asking why she was carrying a showerhead to work. No, she would handle this as quietly as she could.

_Check outside, _that was the side of her mind already thinking as a police officer. The other half would require several cups of coffee before it even began to start working.

"Outside," she whispered, the house eerily quiet now that she was alone. "Outside." She said it again to focus herself on a single goal as she started to move her feet in the right direction.

The bitter wind blew in to her face as she opened the door, and she realised she was still only wearing the flimsy white tank top. Biting her lip in an attempt to dull her sensation of the cold by causing another pain, she looked up and down the outer wall of the bathroom. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary besides the window being open in the middle of winter.

She drew in a sharp breath as she saw the wispy legs of a spider crawl around the corner, escaping her view. It seemed too well timed to be a coincidence. _This is the Spider. There are no coincidences._

Three seconds later, she had her confirmation. She rounded the corner, reaching the front of the apartment, where a dark blue vehicle was driving away. What struck her the most was that it was exactly the same as the car she drove to crime scenes, obviously sans the word _Police_ printed over the vehicle. Running after it in her bare feet, she cursed herself for not carrying her gun with her. The oxygen entering her lungs as she ran cleared her head and she saw that there was a piece of paper was attached to the number plate. _Spider, _it read.

"Son of a bitch!" She muttered as the car rounded a bend. The paper went flying off, and she tried to catch the number plate. _18 – _

_18 what?_

She considered trying to follow the car, but knew the attempt would be futile. Tears threatened to fall from her eyes, but she blinked them back, distracting herself by following the flight of a bird rising to the sun. A flash of white distracted her. It was the piece of paper. Forgetting the car, she lunged for the sheet, scraping her knee on the concrete of the drive way as she did.

It was a folded sheet of A3 paper. _Spider _was inscribed on both visible sides by a messy hand. She undid the tape fastening the inner faces together.

_You didn't check the other wall._

Oh God. "Please, no," she moaned, making her way back to the apartment. She didn't think she could handle it if there was another spider.

It was all she could do to not shout in absolute horror at what she saw. Plastered to the wall was not another dead spider. It was a photograph of her mother. Dead. It was a photograph she had not looked at for over six years. It was a photograph that she had tried, day after day, to stop from invading her thoughts, her nightmares. The blood was spilt over her chest, her dark hair framing her bloodless face.

There, on her face, over her cheek, was an image of a spider, its long legs splayed over her eyelids, overlayed on the photograph. In that same, untidy scrawl as on the paper fastened to the car was written, _I knew her._

Kate felt her legs give way beneath her, falling unconscious as her head hit the pavement. Her last thought before the blackness was that she wished she had her mother's arms to fall in to again.

A/N: Does Beckett seem too weak in this chapter? I'm trying to keep her in character, but this would be hard on even her, wouldn't it?

And about the more technical parts – I know Josh would probably insist on calling the police, or something, and someone probably wouldn't attach a piece of paper over their number plate, but still. Maybe I'm just using up all of my creative licenses on this chapter. (Then again, maybe not.)

**On another note, I know there wasn't a call flashback in this chapter, but I'm thinking of having a long one in the next chapter that includes the characters from the precinct (they're my favourite characters to write about, but I'm writing what comes to me because it feels more organic). Oh, and Josh will be gone soon and Castle will take his place at Beckett's side.**

**One more thing: I've decided I really want reviews (yeah, I know, it took me long enough to start badgering you about it, **_**review, review, review! – **_**but really, if you have the time, I would appreciate it a lot.)**


	4. Chapter 4

"Hey guys, you seen Beckett?" As always when Rick Castle strolled in to the precinct his eyes automatically searched for the detective he was 'shadowing'. Noticing her absence he had placed the cup of coffee that had become something of a ritual between them on her table and walked over to Ryan and Esposito's desks.

"Nope, she hasn't come in yet," Ryan responded.

That was odd, "But it's seven fifty already. She's never this late…did she call in sick or something?" Somehow he didn't think so.

Esposito nodded, raising his eyebrows, "Nice theory bro. But maybe she and Josh just had a late night like any other couple in the city."

Castle rolled his eyes, "You are just so funny Esposito, it's painful even being in your presence." Truth be told, he was simply worried about Beckett. Yesterday she had seemed on edge, frightened by small things, and every time her phone rang she seemed to jump. He could almost swear he had seen tears in her eyes at one point before she'd ran downstairs. Lanie had gone to see her, but judging from the look on her face, she'd had little success in consoling her friend.

Ryan noticed his serious look and pulled a face, "Look, how about I give her a call and see if she's on her way."

Castle flashed a boyish smile and pulled up a chair beside him while he selected her mobile number. As the phone started dialling, Castle leaned towards Ryan so that his ear was against the other side of the phone. He was secretly glad that it was Ryan calling her. This way it would be nothing more than professional courtesy… if he had called her himself she might have interpreted it differently. Probably not, but he was glad nonetheless.

"_Beckett."_

"Uh, hey. It's Ryan."

"Oh, I'm sorry I'm late. I'm on my way up now," Castle couldn't help noticing that her voice sounded weaker than usual.

"Alright then." Beckett was the one that ended the call.

Within a minute, the elevator doors opened to reveal her. She looked ready to drop, despite it still being morning. Her eyes were dark and her hair was messily tied behind her head, contrasting with her pallid face, in an unsuccessful attempt to conceal a large bruise forming on her brow. There was also a bandage over her right arm – one of the skin colour ones that people used for light sprains. Little did he know that Beckett was using it to conceal a long line of stitches from his sight.

"You look like hell, Beckett," Castle said to her. "What happened to your hand? And your head? Don't think that we can't all see that bruise."

Beckett looked away from him at the bricks making up the precinct wall. "Please, Castle." He noticed, in the way he usually noticed little details about her, that she was taking care not to apply any pressure on her hand, and that she was trying to avoid moving her head. He shot a quick glance at Ryan and Esposito, who frowned quizzically and went back to sifting through the victim's phone records.

"Forget it. You can't walk in here looking like that and expect me to let it lie. Tell me what happened and I will not say a word for the rest of the day."

She seemed not to be listening as she took off her beige coat and slung it over her chair. She sat down carefully and turned on her computer, closing her eyes for a moment and placing her head in her hands.

"Beckett?"

Instantly, she lifted her head and looked at him blankly for almost three seconds before whispering, "Not now, Castle."

She was leaning her cheek against her hand now, and he could tell from that alone that her head was killing her. He decided to let her have her way this time.

When her computer had finished loading, she clicked through her emails. She had received four emails overnight. One from the Captain which was for an update on the case, one from her father which Castle looked away from when she opened it, one from Lanie about going out to dinner, and the last one was from an unknown sender, which Beckett lingered her mouse over for a minute before closing her emails without reading it and turning her computer off.

Abruptly, she stood up, but seemed to regret it as she stumbled slightly. He moved forward to steady her, but she had grabbed the table. She shivered a bit, and put her coat back on, before heading to Ryan and Esposito.

"Did you find anything from the phone records?"

"Nope. Still going through them though. This woman had about a dozen calls a day." Ryan replied, trying to be chirpy for his boss' sake.

"Keep looking through it… I'm… I'm going to go see if Lanie's found anything on the body."

Castle followed her to the lift until she turned and said, "You know what Castle, do you think you could help out Ryan and Esposito on this one?" He feigned a look of hurt but the elevator doors were already closing in on her pale figure.

"Yo, Castle, what happened to her?" Esposito asked. It was no secret – well in fact, the whole precinct knew – that if anyone laid a finger on Beckett, Esposito would beat them to a pulp. It was something Castle envied. He wanted to be able to protect her in the same way.

"She wouldn't tell me." Whatever it was that was going on in her life, Beckett had always been honest with him in sharing what it was. This was the first time she had completely cut himself off from him. Dimly, he hoped Lanie would have better luck in getting her to reveal whatever it was.

The makeshift evidence bag containing the dead spider was in her pocket, and although she felt an overwhelming claustrophobia, stuck in the lift with the creature, her left hand tightly gripped the bagged photograph of her mother she'd found on Josh's wall. The words, _I knew her, _crept through her mind, and she almost felt like she'd collapse again, but thankfully the elevator doors slid open, freeing her from the enclosed space.

She made her way in to the morgue and saw that Lanie was alone with their latest victim. Kate had been so distracted lately though, that she couldn't even remember her name.

"Lanie?"

The medical examiner almost dropped the nasty looking tool she was using for the autopsy. "My God, girl, don't come creeping around in here like you do at…" After placing the object down on the metal bench-top, she'd turned around to face her friend, gasping at the sight that met her eyes. "What in the hell happened to you, Beckett?"

"Lanie, it's nothing – "

"No, don't you give me that 'it's nothing,' I'm an M.E. for God's sake, bruising is my area of expertise, just like murder and mayhem is yours, and post-mortem or not, I am telling you, that is _not _nothing."

Kate was glad she'd thought in advance enough to pull the sleeves of her coat down so that Lanie couldn't see her other injury. She tried to shake of Lanie's comments. "I came down here to ask you for a favour, Lanie."

"What is it?" She was glad Lanie hadn't pursued the subject of her battered condition.

She pulled the plastic sleeve from her pocket. "I want you to see if you can pull any DNA from this." She cringed seeing the spider, it's limbs splayed out, and thought about how only moments before it had been pressed in her pocket, right next to her body. Lanie didn't seem to mind the creature, after all, she had seen her fair share through all the autopsies, and besides, an M.E. could hardly be squeamish.

"What is this? Is this part of the investigation?" Lanie had a right to be curious, of course, but her head was throbbing and she could barely stand straight, so she wished that the curiousity would melt away and Lanie would just do this for her. She kept her expression unreadable.

"It's a Funnel Web spider. And no, it's not part of this investigation, it's something I need to get done," She saw her friend's doubtful look and hastened to add, "Lanie, I need to know who did this."

Lanie still looked uncomfortable at the idea, but seemed swayed by Kate's emotion. "Okay, I'll do it. If it's not part of the investigation, does that mean the Captain doesn't know?"

Kate had dreaded the question. How could she tell Lanie to do this, not only at the same time as when they had a case, but also behind her Captain's back. "No, he doesn't know, and I want to keep it that way."

Lanie nodded. "I'll call you if I get a match, then."

"No. Call me if you can pull enough DNA to run through the database. I'll run it." Kate said. If there was a chance that she had the Spider cornered, she didn't want the rest of the team embroiled in the mess that would follow. She could do this.

She turned to leave, but as she did Lanie grabbed her arm. She was unable to stop a wince from escaping her and Lanie, perceptive as ever, lifted both the sleeve and the loose bandage.

"Oh, Beckett." Lanie murmured softly, touching the detective's shoulder before she exited the room, her face once again a stony mask.

The day had gone so slowly. Castle sitting beside her trying to make her smile, while her fingers ached at every word she wrote on some paperwork regarding their last case that she had yet to catch up on. She had allowed the boys to take the lead on the case after an embarrassing moment where she had forgotten the cause of death Lanie had provided several days ago. Castle had looked at her incredulously for a second, and the boys had seemed genuinely concerned. She had never mistaken any information on any case she had ever worked.

After handing them the case, she had told them about how she was scheduled to move in to her new apartment and that she could use a few extra minutes to get everything sorted. None of them had any objections and she'd left the precinct then, at 6:00pm. It was the earliest she'd returned home in longer than she could remember.

Josh had been back home. Although his day started early, he was usually back before her, and had seemed to determined to help her bring her only suitcase to her new home. So many of her things had been destroyed in that accursed explosion Scott Dunn had orchestrated and she hadn't had a lot of time to purchase new clothing or whatnot, despite Lanie's attempts.

After lugging the suitcase in to her apartment, he'd asked her if she wanted company. She had, as usual before she'd began her brief stay with him, turned him down. He'd seemed slightly downcast at her reply, yet was ready to accept it and moved out the door. She'd stopped him from leaving though.

"_Josh, I can't be with you anymore. We don't work."_

"_Kate?"_

"_You know it as well. It wouldn't last between us."_

"_You're right. I knew, somewhere inside."_

"_You were a great friend."_

"_So were you. Goodbye, Kate."_

"_Goodbye, Josh."_

She hadn't really wanted to end it between them. Josh was one of the most sincere men she'd had the pleasure of meeting. They'd never had any real romance going between them, but he had been the only man who'd ever actually understood. Even though Will and Tom had both worked homicides, neither of them were in a position where they actually had to tell the victim's family of their death. They were saved that heartbreak, at least. Josh knew how it felt.

The real reason she'd let him go was because she was afraid that the Spider would see him as a target if he were close to her. At first she'd tried to rationalise why the Spider wouldn't harm Josh, but she'd realised that there was precious little reasoning that supported the conclusion. He'd violated Josh's house, for God's sake, cause she was living there. The only honourable thing to do had seemed to be to break off their relationship.

She just had to wait for Lanie to come back with something. Unfolding the picture in her pocket and flinching as her eyes came to rest on the black spider rather than the woman she loved, she wondered if that was what the spider wanted: to drive her insane.

_12.00 Thursday September 16__th__ 2010 (four months ago)_

_Normally, she didn't mind interrogations. In fact, they were mildly comforting to her. She knew she what Castle would call a 'knack' for getting people to open up to her. Even murderers. And although some of the time it was probably because they found her alluring in some kind of sexual way that made her sick to her stomach, it was comforting to know she could do something so well._

_Today, however, was the 16__th__ of September._

_They – she and Castle – had began their interrogation a little after 11.20, and their suspect had began to buckle under the combination of both of their wildly different interrogation styles._

_It was now 12.00, noon._

"_Did you have a romantic involvement with Miss Jane Keenan?" Castle had started to take over the interrogation as the frequency at which she'd speak grew lesser and lesser._

_She felt her phone vibrating in her trouser pocket._

"_Castle, I have to go. Can you handle this one?" Kate whispered in to his ear. Receiving a nod, she practically ran from the room, pulling her mobile from her pocket and making her way to a deserted corner of the precinct._

"_Beckett," she said in to the phone._

_There was a pause. "I know who you are. I know far more about you than that, in fact, as you have been finding out."_

"_What do you know about my mother's case?"_

_Another pause. He had never paused before. She got the distinct impression that he was toying with her. "I'm not about to make it that easy on you, Katie."_

"_Tell me what you know." She said each word clearly, her fury evident in the words, blocking out any fear that might have been apparent before._

_There was no response. She checked her phone and saw that the line was still connected. "Last time you told me that you were going to collect a reward from someone if you gave me to them. Who was it?"_

_Again there was no reply. _

"_You call yourself the Spider. Why is that?" She had had a brief flirtation with Psychology while in college and while with the police had completed several psychological profiles of criminals. From what she could gather, the Spider had a need to exert his power over her through her fear of him, and that all seemed to indicate that mentioning spiders would get him to continue to speak._

_His next words, however, did not have anything to do with spiders, yet they were possibly the most frightening words she had heard him say. "I know _exactly _where you are."_

_The word 'exactly' made her hand tremble. _He had been tracking her. _The pauses – he had known she wouldn't break off the call because of her fear and her curiousity. When they used phones to place the location of suspects, it always took over thirty seconds of having them on the line. That was what he had done._

_Before all those thoughts had completely crossed her mind, she had ended the call angrily. The anger was quickly overtaken by an overwhelming fear. He knew where she was. He could locate her at any time. She was powerless against him._

"_Beckett! Where did you disappear to?" She closed her eyes for a second while still facing the wall before turning to face Captain Montgomery._

"_Yeah, where'd you go? Did you see me? I got him to confess." And that would be Castle._

_She felt weak. She felt spent. She felt as though she never wanted to walk through the precinct's doors again. She felt as though looking through even one more murder would tear her apart at the seams._

"_In my office now, Beckett," the Captain ordered her._

_Following him in to the small cubicle, and trying to hurriedly compose herself as she heard him pull the door shut behind him, she felt her shell breaking._

"_Captain, I can explain," she started to say._

_Montgomery shook his head, "Oh, I'm sure you can. But Beckett, you let me explain to you that if you _ever _walk out of an interrogation again, I will suspend you from duty."_

_Beckett nodded, her hands balling in to fists behind her back. "Yes sir." She turned to leave his office, but was stopped by his voice.  
"You know that you're like a daughter to me, Kate."_

_She stopped in her tracks, feeling disoriented as she looked up at Roy. "Sir?"_

"_I've been your Captain for long enough to know when something is bothering you," he looked her straight in the eye, "You know where to find me."_

_Kate was annoyed with herself for her obvious transparency, but more than anything, she was touched by Montgomery's words. "Thanks, Roy. That means a lot."_

_He ushered her to the door and shut it behind her. Despite the bustle of the precinct, she felt more alone than ever,_

She had known from the beginning that she couldn't tell Josh. She loved her father, but this wasn't something he could do anything about – it would most likely just upset him. Despite Montgomery's promise that she could tell him anything, she was sure he'd be hurt by her mistrust of him for the past months. This definitely wasn't something she could light-heartedly share with Lanie, and the boys…. well, Ryan had Jenny and Esposito had Lanie. She didn't want to disrupt their dynamic with her pain.

That left one person.

She was silent on the way to his apartment, all the while grasping the now creased photograph in her hand. Thanking the taxi driver, she made her way up the stairs to Castle's apartment. Knocking on the door, she wondered briefly if she was doing the right thing, but as a flamboyantly dressed Martha answered the door, she felt more at ease.  
"Hello, Kate, dear," Martha greeted easily. "Oh, are you alright? That's a nasty bruise you've got."

"I'm fine. Is Castle around?"

The smell of pizza suddenly occupied the air, "Yes, indeed he is," Castle said with a terribly fake Italian accent as he ushered her in.

"Well, I'm off to bed, I've got an audition tomorrow," Martha climbed upstairs, leaving Kate alone with Castle.

"Care for some Pizza? It's homemade," Castle offered, guiding her to the couch. To his surprise, she sat down and passively accepted the plate he passed her, laying it on her lap.

"Actually, Castle, I wanted to talk to you about something." Wordlessly, she pulled the image of her mother from her pocket, laying it on the coffee table in front of them.

**A/N: I want to let you know now that where I'm living, there's bad weather forecast, so I've been advised not to use my computer for the next two or three days. Plus, I start school soon, so my updates will probably become less frequent. Out of curiousity, would you prefer that I update quickly with shorter chapters, or less frequently with longer chapters (bear in mind that it'll probably be about the same amount of text in the same amount of time, just distributed differently).**

**When I was writing this song, I was listening to Dido's songs **_**The Day Before the Day**_** and **_**Slide **_**and they remind me of Castle in odd ways. **_**The Day Before the Day **_**is a beautiful song, and I'd suggest listening to it if you've ever lost someone you loved, I think it reflects Beckett's feelings about her mother. And just for the hell of it, **_**Spiders **_**by Moby (it had nothing to do with the arachnid – in fact, I have no idea why it's even called that).**

**And of course, please review if you can.**


	5. Chapter 5

"_How long has this been going on?"_

"_It's been seven months."_

Seven months? How could she have kept functioning with this Spider persona in her mind for seven months? But as he looked at Beckett – Kate, asleep on his sofa, he knew she would go to any lengths to hide the pain she felt. She looked so forlorn lying there, so unlike _the extraordinary KB _he had based Nikki Heat upon. Make no mistake though, she was still extraordinary – even more so, now that he knew what she had been carrying with her every day for over half a year.

"_He calls me, once a month, always on the sixteenth, always at noon. He calls himself the Spider."_

Rick could tell that she felt an intense hatred towards him. He, too, after hearing of what he had put her through, wanted nothing more than to throw the Spider against a wall and remind him of his place. But as he watched her face when she described him, he could tell that she had grown almost dependant upon his calls, like she needed them. It was like a rhythm she had grown accustomed to. She needed those calls on some level that she couldn't quite comprehend.

"_Did he hurt you? Has he ever done anything other than call you?"_

"…_No."_

"_Beckett, that cut on your arm and bruise on your forehead… Tell me it wasn't him."_

"_Castle…"_

"_Tell me it wasn't him."_

"_It wasn't him. Not directly, at least."_

This had confused him at first, and she seemed to shut herself off from him for a while, staring in to the distance, silent. As the silence had dragged on, he had tried to persuade her to eat something – she didn't look like she'd eaten anything in days – but she had shaken her head, declining the offer, looking unfocused. So he had pushed to try and get her to tell him what had happened that morning.

What she told him made him feel sick, but outraged. He had broken in to Josh's apartment and planted something in there to scare the hell out of her. God, he hated him. He knew where she was.

"_I panicked, and broke the mirror, that's how I cut my arm. Josh stitched it up for me."_

She hadn't told him about how she'd gotten the bruise on her head and he didn't ask. Anything to make her not have to relive that infernal reality the Spider was creating around her.

After that, they had lapsed in to another silence. She seemed to be drifting off, almost falling asleep several times. Alexis was away with a friend, so he hardly minded if she did stay the night, but there was one more thing he felt he had to know.

"_Why did he choose spiders?"_

She had looked at him uncomprehendingly for almost a minute before turning away from him completely. He tried to give her space, but her prone figure, leaning against his couch screamed with a need for comforting. While she had still been facing away from him, he decided to risk her anger and reached out to stroke her hand. When she made no response, he tried to withdraw it, but her fingers wrapped themselves around his, and she had let out a low moan. It was then he had realised that she was asleep.

It had been like that for a while now. He had watched her lie there for almost an hour, listening to the clock ticking by, but more to the sound of her breathing. He let her keep her hold on his hand. Her fingers were soft. These thoughts were all secondary though. He was thinking about how he should have noticed what had been going on.

Now that she had told him what had been happening it seemed almost too obvious. He remembered that time in mid-September last year when she'd ran out of an interrogation – it had been noon, right? He had been so blinded with his foolish happiness at having gotten the suspect to confess that he hadn't paid any attention to her. She'd looked flustered though… upset, even. _Why hadn't she told him? _The question blared through his mind for the hundredth time.

"Dammit, Beckett!" Instantly he regretted saying the thought aloud. She started to stir, blinking away her exhaustion quickly and letting go of his hand.

"Castle?" She muttered, holding her head in her left hand. She seemed to be in pain.

"You fell asleep. I didn't want to wake you, you were so…peaceful." He had been about to say 'adorable' but it didn't seem like the right time. She didn't seem to hear him, she was clutching her head and her eyes were screwed shut. "Beckett, are you okay?"  
Within ten seconds she had opened her eyes and was looking at him blearily. "Yeah. I just felt a little dizzy for a second."

He hesitated, but felt he had to ask, "Beckett, what happened to your head? You didn't mention it before."

"Nothing. I fell over."

Again, he hesitated before saying, "Fell over as in passing out?" That didn't sound like Beckett, but she'd said that the photo of her mother had been attached to the wall of Josh's building. If she'd stumbled upon it in a moment of shock, even she might have fainted.

He could see the truth in her eyes. "I'm going to leave," she whispered.

"Beckett… Kate, I don't think you should. You can stay at my place, Alexis isn't home so you can sleep in her room tonight," he hoped she would accept the offer willingly. He didn't want to let her out of his sight.

"No. I should really go." She stood up, making her way to his door.

He was faster, blocking the door. "I insist."

The blood suddenly drained from Beckett's face and she walked back to the sofa and sat down. "You know why I came here tonight Castle?" He shook his head, not wanting to cut her off. "I came because I trust you and I needed to tell someone what was happening."

Rick moved back from the door and sat down facing her, taking her hands in his. She squirmed uncomfortable and he released her. "Thank you for telling me. It means a lot that after all this time of being your shadow that our partnership has evolved in to trust."

A hint of a smile shone through Beckett's eyes. "That day came a long time ago, Castle, you know that. I'm sorry I told you though. It was selfish of me to come here and burden you with it as well."

Castle could hardly believe what he was hearing. Kate had been jerked around like a puppet by this insane character the Spider, and he was responsible for her passing out and having a line of stitches in her hand and she was sorry for _burdening_ him?

"Beckett, you listen to me. You are in no way burdening me. He has been taunting you about your mother's death. You're allowed to lean on other people for support. Lanie, Ryan and Esposito, the Captain, they all care about you. We can help you through this."

She flinched as if she'd been struck. "Castle, I don't want any of them to know what I told you tonight."

Castle swallowed uncomfortably but nodded. He didn't plan to in the immediate future, but if the Spider harmed Beckett badly he would break his word. He would rather lie to her than watch her slowly kill herself via this Spider.

"Thank you, Castle. For everything." Beckett turned quickly away from him, breaking the spell between them, moving to the door again. This time, she didn't turn back as she turned the doorknob.

Rick just sat there, allowing only the slightest flicker of emotion to betray the pain he felt within himself as he watched her leave his apartment.  
Rick looked down at his hands. Less than fifteen minutes ago, Beckett's fingers had been folded around them. "It's nothing she can't handle," he told himself. Silently hoping he was right, he moved over to the window just in time to see the moonlight touch her coppery hair as she entered the taxi she had hailed.

Miles away, someone else saw the moonlight hit her hair, feeling an insatiable desire for _her_ blaze through his mind.

_Soon._

He pulled the lid off the jar he was holding and extracted his last Funnel Web spider. With gloved fingers, he fed it through the gap in the window he had created before unsheathing his knife.

It was only a matter of time now.

**A/N: Again, I don't know how long it will be until I can update again.**

**I know this chapter wasn't very long, but I probably won't be able to write for a while after this and I wanted to give you something for all your kind reviews.**

**So I guess that just leaves me grovelling for more. Please. (It would probably make me write faster since it gives me something to look forward to.)**

**What do you think of the way the story is progressing? I'll try to have a call flashback in the next chapter if I can, and more of the precinct characters.**


	6. Chapter 6

**There is some quite graphic content near the end, so I would say that this chapter earns the story it's T rating.**

Why did Castle have to be so kind all the time? He had tried to help her. Hell, he had let her fall asleep in his apartment with her hand folded in his. She'd pretended she hadn't noticed, but the feeling of his hand around hers made her feel precious in a way that Josh, for instance, could never make her feel.

He didn't understand though. He thought he could make her pain go away so much more easily than ever would be possible. Her mother had died _fifteen _years ago. For almost the first seven years, every time she had closed her eyes, she'd seen her face. Every night she'd woken up, painfully alone, screaming, waiting for her mother's arms to wrap themselves around her and tell her it was a dream. It was starting again. That cycle of self-destruction that she was subconsciously aware would kill her, but couldn't completely comprehend as a danger. The depression that raged in her mind at her mother's killer still roaming the streets… The internal struggle about whether her entire life was a waste… Inadequate…

As she exited the taxi and stumbled up the stairs to her apartment door, she felt her phone vibrating. She had received another text message. She hadn't told Castle about the text message the Spider had sent her. If she'd told him that much, he would have insisted upon telling Montgomery. She hadn't told him that he had the ability to track her either. She had checked the email she'd received from him the first time Castle had left her side. _We'll meet within the week. _She had almost thrown up again. The Spider had made a crucial mistake though, letting her know when he would target her. She had made a point of having her gun within easy access throughout the day and night.

Thankfully, though, this text message was from Lanie. Her heart sank as she read it though. Once, twice, hoping the message would somehow alter itself. _No DNA or prints on rope or Funnel Web. Sorry, Lanie._

She paused on the step, turning and looking in to the darkness of the night, letting the blistering wind attack her hair and pierce her being. It was so cold, in more ways than one. She thrust her shivering hands in to her pockets as she tried to face the truth that she was not going to catch him.

_Detective Kate Beckett. _How little she realised the title meant now. To Ryan or Esposito it meant so much to uphold justice in the city they lived in. For her, there was that, and there always would be that, but it was more bringing justice to the victims and their relatives. It was a meagre substitute for not being able to bring herself and her mother and her father the justice they deserved.

The Spider had bested her – both of them knew it. Somehow, she had allowed an outsider to breach the barriers around a part of her psyche that was so badly damaged after her mother's death that she had sworn never to open them again. And now, somehow, she had to catch him. The only thing was that it was a monumental task to do alone. His blatant brutality in calling her month after month cut her off more and more from the familiar police world of protocols and arrests. She couldn't use the truth, _her weapon to wield, _against him, because he knew all the truths about her. She couldn't lie, because he knew.

Then, suddenly, it all came to her. How to track him, how to make him think he'd won, how to find him. She would let him take her and then she would spring her trap. And in any case, regardless of what she felt she didn't think she could keep on fighting him. She just wanted to give in and let him know that he had won. Let him know that he had defeated her, wholly and absolutely, and that she was nothing more than a cracked shell. If she could catch him in the process though…

Taking her mobile out of her pocket she checked how much battery remained in the small device. It was almost fully charged.

Before she was able to slip the device in to her innermost pocket though, she had been knocked unconscious. The phone slipped from her grasp falling from her hands to the ground, where it was kicked in to the bushes, screen cracked.

The assailant carried her limp body from the steps to a car parked beside the road. Halfway there, she regained consciousness, but made herself remain unresponsive despite every molecule of her being protesting, screaming for her to fight. She kept her eyes firmly shut as she was placed – delicately? – in the boot of a car.

_12.00 Saturday October 16__th__ 2010 (three months ago)_

_She had woken up at 5:00 that morning, despite having stayed out late with Castle, Lanie and the boys after having just closed a case. The logic had been to stay out so late that she would wake up just before or be woken up by the call._

_As it happened, she had been forced to pace around her room for seven hours. She had tried going out for a run, but she felt so unfocused she could hardly tell where she was going. She had tried doing push-ups, sit-ups anything to keep herself moving, make her think about something other than that call and how much time it would be till then._

_Lanie had called, asking her if she wanted to go out later in the day, but she had flat out refused and disconnected her home phone after that. Strange as it sounded, she didn't want that kind of distraction or, more importantly, any of her friends to notice anything 'off' about her._

_Then, she had done something that made her want to scream about what he had done to her. She had gotten a knife from her kitchen and held it up against her neck, letting it lie there. It was disturbing to her, how natural it felt, and she felt nauseated by the smoothness of the blade against her skin._

_What frightened her more than anything else was that she knew that the only reason she didn't let the edge of the knife slide across her neck was for her father… and for Castle. She realised that she was on the brink of suicidal._

_As these thoughts crossed her mind, her mobile rang. The jovial ring tone seemed out of place in her room, from which she had removed almost all personal items, ridding it of personality._

"_Beckett."_

_There was a brief silence, then, "Do I need to tell you that I know where you are?"_

_The hissing of the Spider's voice penetrated her worse than she had ever wanted to allow. Suddenly, she wished that she had been brave enough to commit to that slash with the knife. "No," she whispered._

"_Good girl, Katie. I've been thinking that we should meet soon." She drew a breath sharply at the words… It was all she wanted, wasn't it? To find him and kill him, shooting him over and over, and watching the life ebb out of his eyes. "Not yet, but soon."_

"_Why? Why not yet? You've done what you've set out to achieve. You've got me, vulnerable. You've won. Why not kill me now?" Her voice rose in pitch as she said this, the hysteria consuming her._

"_Don't say things like that, Katie. What would your father think? You must think about him." He taunted her, his tone good-natured as he twisted the words that they were taught to use when working with suicidal murderers._

_She felt tears leaking from her eyes. "If you're going to do it, just do it now."_

_There was a laugh, grating and low in pitch. "You're missing the point. I'm paid to destroy you, not kill you."_

_Then, it was there again, her training, kicking back in to her, forcing her to push him, even though it would most likely end in her being shattered in to more pieces. "Paid by who? Who are you going to collect your prize from? Tell me."_

"_Yet again, Katie, you don't realise how terribly far over your head you are grasping. You are already falling; you've fallen too far to be saved now. It's too late. You're being reeled in as we speak." Unconsciously, she reached for her gun, drawing it close to her body, trying, unsuccessfully, to draw comfort from the weapon._

"_Tell me who."_

_There was another short laugh. "No. But let's try something else. You are going to do as I say. And you are going to end this call. I know that you hate me. I can tell through every word you force yourself to speak to me that you despise me. You are going to end this call."_

"_Please don't do that," She found herself begging. No, he couldn't do that._

"_You are going to tell me, 'Until next month,' the same way that I tell you at the end of every call and you are going to end this call, or I will never contact you again." She could tell that he was yelling, and the sheer forcefulness of his voice rammed in to her._

"_Please…" She knew that she needed him to call her again. If he stopped now, she would never be able to find who he was. The tears were streaming more rapidly down her cheeks now._

"_No use saying please unless I care about being polite. You do as I say or no more calls for Katie." He used a childish voice, mocking her. She wished she could feel furious, angry, some kind of strong emotion to give her strength, but all she could feel was fear,_

"_Un… Until next m… month," she managed to say beneath gritted teeth. Then she ended the call._

_She had no idea how long she lay on the floor crying after that call, but judging from the dampness of her sleeves when she woke up at six that evening and the redness of her eyes, it had been a long time._

Kate was jerked back in to reality with a similar motion on her arm. She was pulled in to a sitting position and then dragged from the car. When she tried to walk, her captor realised she was awake and covered her eyes with his hand before she could see or say anything.

She heard a door being pulled open and forced herself to keep walking. Then, she was dropped on to the floor and she felt her own handcuffs being pulled around her wrists by gloved fingers and a blindfold shoved over her eyes.

"So, Katie, you and I are about to get to know one another a lot better." She felt fingers wrapping themselves around her shoulders and sensed her breathing speeding up. She couldn't hear anything other than her rapid breaths and his heavy ones.

Feeling a pressure on her chest, she realised he was sitting over her. The breath caught in her throat, and her last clear realisation before she fell in to a complete state of panic was that his tongue was sliding across her neck.

**A/N: I know more people are reading this story than are leaving a review, and I think that a lot of authors on this site will agree that when writing fanfiction, we aim for the approval of people who are fans of the material I am basing it on. I didn't get any reviews on Chapter 5, and hence, I have no idea what any of you thought, leaving me wondering whether I am doing something wrong to put you off. Please leave a review to let me know what you think of my writing.**

**One other thing I want to say is that I think I can only update once a week now, probably on Saturdays, but I want to let you know that throughout this week, I'm going to go back through my chapters and make minor grammar/formatting editions to previous chapters.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Again, a little graphic, I suppose.**

"Tell me, detective, what is it like to be _broken?_" He twisted her hair in his fingers. Kate heard her own screams echoing through her surroundings construing only a fraction of the pain she felt.

_Kill me._

"I know what is going through your mind, detective," Although she had heard him speak countless times over the phone, there was something especially chilling about hearing speaking from directly beside her. "You want to die now."

_Kill me._

"You want to see who I am?" She tried to move her hands, but they were behind her back and she was lying on the floor. She had no strength left within her. No will to fight whatever pain he wished to inflict on her. "You can go to hell first, bitch."

She was being pulled to her feet again. His grip on her upper arm was strong, keeping her under his control as he removed the handcuffs from her wrists. The precaution was unnecessary though, she wouldn't have moved even if she was able to.

There was a loud clang of metal scraping against metal and she was shoved again to the floor, falling painfully on her side. There was the clang again.

It seemed like hours she lay there, listening to the sound of her own breathing, before she became cognizant of the fact that her hands were free and she scrambled to reach her blindfold, pulling it from her eyes.

She was in a cage. There was a single light above her, but all of the other surroundings were darkness.

"Ah, detective, I was starting to fear that you were dead. Thankfully not, it would seem." His voice pierced her small world, an island of light within a sea of darkness. She had considered screaming, but it seemed to only magnify his pleasure. Before he had… _Oh God, _he had…

"_Please!"_

_His tongue flicked across her neck, pressing itself harder and harder against her pallid skin. Her head was throbbing and her hand, underneath the combined weight of the two of them, felt as if it had been set alight and left to burn._

"_What did you say, Katie?" He thrust his lips against hers, using his fingers to block her nose so that when she inevitably tried to breathe, her open mouth met his tongue and she… he… _

She didn't remember what had happened after that apart from him slapping her face hard, which cut the inside of her cheek against her teeth. She had coughed up the blood pathetically, unable to move, feeling it trickling down the side of her face.

"I hope you are still in the mood for some theatrics. It's the least I could do to pay you back for all those hours of frustration, waiting for you to break."

_You broke me, at the first call._

She caught sight of a black hand reaching in to the cage through a square gap. She made to sit up, but fell back against the floor, spluttering as she tried to catch her breath, at the same time trying to make out the face that the hand belonged to.

In ten seconds though, the face was forgotten. Everything was forgotten.

In his hand was a small black spider.

_Kill me._

"Enjoy this, Katie." He shook his hand and the spider fell to the floor. She screamed. It only made the creature move towards her faster. She twisted away and managed to force herself in to a sitting position stomping weakly on the creature, which was killed instantaneously.

Then, from behind her, came the voice again. "Not so easily, Katie." Then his dark hands twisted around her neck so tightly she was unable to breathe. Then he slid his hand over hers and released her, leaving a large spider to crawl up her arm.

He may as well have continued to strangle her.

_Castle._

-CASTLE-

_Castle. _He heard the whisper in his mind. It was Beckett's voice. Somehow, he felt like she hadn't been completely open with him. Like there was more that she was trying to keep to herself. He had seen the look in her eyes though. It had been anguish.

It was the second day that week he had strolled in to the precinct with Beckett noticeably absent. This time, though, he knew what was bothering her.

Ryan and Esposito where in the break room, fixing themselves cups of coffee while continuing to look through their vic's personal details. If only they knew what Beckett had been going through…

The thought passed through his head as he turned a corner to an empty area of the precinct. He picked up his phone and although he did pause momentarily, he hit Beckett's number with a renewed determination. He would help her through this.

When there was no response he waited five minutes, before calling again. No response. He frowned to himself. Beckett _always _had her phone with her. Always. Trying to come up with an explanation, he found himself continuing to be drawn to the possibility that something had happened to her.

"Hey, Esposito!" He called, rushing to the break room.

"Yeah bro, what's up?"

The Hispanic detective suddenly noticed the seriousness in his eyes, how his posture was more alert, and more aggressive than usual, and how his tone contained none of that playful lilt that was so often present.

"What's going on, Castle?" Esposito asked, the smile falling from his features. There were two things that made Castle serious – Alexis and Beckett. Last he checked, the former was perfectly fine. "Where's Beckett?"

Ryan, who had been shuffling around the back of the room catching up with a colleague, hastened to join the conversation. He was quick to notice the graveness between the two of them.

Esposito was looking at Castle with something that was almost fear in his eyes, and Castle was glancing straight back, his eyes filled with something deeper than terror. It was a dreadful fear for his dearest friend's life.

"Is it Beckett?" Ryan asked, not needing verbal communication to realise the truth. He seemed to sprint to Montgomery's office, speaking but a sentence before collecting his car keys. His quick movements seemed to pulverise Castle and Esposito in to action, and they hurried to meet Ryan at his car.

Strapping the seatbelt over his shoulder, Castle said quickly to Ryan, "To her apartment, she left me her address on here," shoving a yellow sticky note to him.

"Thanks, Castle." Ryan caught his eye for a fraction of a second, and the look that he gave him spoke volumes about how their friendship had evolved in to something deeper than family. Castle nodded painfully before looking away. Esposito saw his look.

"Look, bro, chances are, she's perfectly fine. She seemed a little beaten up yesterday, but you know Beckett, she'll get over it."

It wasn't that he didn't appreciate Esposito's effort, but they both knew that for Beckett to be completely unreachable, something had to have happened.

Pulling over at Beckett's apartment, Castle was surprised when Esposito handed him a gun. "We don't know what's in there, Castle. You take this and you stay behind me and Ryan."

Swallowing painfully, but only because at every other scene it would be Beckett giving him this talk, he followed the two detectives up the stairs to Beckett's apartment.

"NYPD! Open up!" Esposito yelled through the door.

Castle moved past Ryan, "Beckett! You there?"

Esposito shoved him out of the way and shouldered the door, pushing it clean off it's hinges.

Castle watched as the two detectives did their customary sweep of the apartment. Hearing yells of _'Clear!_' from all directions, he made his way in to her bedroom. Her bed was simple; plain white sheets on a plain wooden frame. What interested him more though, was the framed photograph on her bedside table. It was a faded black and white picture of a man and woman. Joanna and Jim Beckett, he realised.

"She's not here," Ryan called, interrupting him from his thoughts. "I'm calling forensics to sweep the area. Go down to the car, Castle, there's nothing you can do up here."

Castle nodded again. As soon as Ryan left the room, he pulled the photo from the frame and pocketed it though. It was important to her.

As he walked down the outside steps he noticed a slit of plastic on the stair. Bending down to pick it up, he barely remembered to not touch it with bare fingers. Alone, the small piece meant nothing, but it seemed significant, somehow. Shiftin his gaze throughout the immediate surroundings, his eyes immediately caught a clump of bushes with a snapped portion of leaves.

Suddenly forgetting about not contaminating the evidence, he reached in to the bushes and pulled out a small mobile phone.

Beckett's mobile phone.

**A/N: I'm sure police procedure is off, but really, unless you are a police officer yourself, I doubt you would have a really proficient knowledge of the system anyway.**

**I wrote this chapter quite late in the night, so there may be some obvious errors, for which I apologise. I'm not too happy with this chapter myself. But I'm tired, what can I say?**

**I really want to update sooner than a week from now, but I'm tied down by a lot of homework. I'll try to update, but don't get your hopes up. Maybe I'll do it in little sections or something.**

**Please leave a review.**


	8. Chapter 8

"We don't know what's in there, Castle." There was a rustle of fabrics and the sound of a gun being loaded. "You take this, and you stay behind me."

_Loud footsteps sounded on what was likely a wooden floor._

"_NYPD! Open up!" Esposito's voice, accompanied with booming knocks on a door._

_More footsteps. "Beckett! You there?" Castle's voice, filled with concern. _He cares…

There was a click and the recording was switched off.

She could just make out a small square of bluish-white light and brown fingers blocking parts of the screen. A mobile phone, she realised. Was he sending a text message?

"Katie, your people will be here soon. I'm sure they'll come rushing after they get my message. Chances are, you'll be dead by then."

She hardly heard him, despite the fact that her position slumped against a wall that she couldn't see was undoubtedly very close to him. There was a light sheen of sweat on her forehead and blood had dried on her face and over her clothes. Yet he had done things to her to make her forget all of it. He had put her in a position that had only existed in her mind as a possibility of nightmare.

A spider bite.

It was on her arm where it had first crawled over her skin. She could still feel it there, a foreign presence. Those spindly legs… she shuddered in disgust. The movement was a mistake, making her head throb violently. She brought her knees up close to her chest and put her head in her hands.

Castle.

-CASTLE-

There it was again, her voice in his mind. It was like she was begging him to help her. The scenario that was painted in his mind was deeply disturbing. It was simply wrong for Beckett to be begging, for help, mercy… anything.

The elevator doors opened, and for a fleeting moment, as he saw long, dark hair, he hoped it was Beckett, but it was someone from CSU. It seemed like all the faces he saw were just blurs. All he could notice was their similarities to _her._

Esposito waved her over to his position beside Castle. The two of them were watching as Ryan scrolled through Beckett's phone records.

Castle had told them, Montgomery, and Lanie, about the Spider. It seemed like the only possible way for her to go missing the way that she had. The photograph of her mother he had shown her the night before seemed to highlight some kind of horrid fascination with her, except the strange thing was, Beckett had told him that the Spider had made it seem like he had been paid to, in her words, 'break' her, rather than doing it of his own volition.

Ryan, especially, had looked at him in terror. Kate Beckett was a woman he had worked with for several years. In his eyes, Castle could see the guilt at not seeing the nightmare that her world had become. Montgomery's expression was harder to read, but it was definitely something that channelled betrayal rather than real surprise. Lanie had tears in her eyes, and Esposito had pulled her to him, not letting her see that his eyes, too were shining with moisture.

The woman from CSU looked at the group with sympathy in her eyes. She had worked with Detective Beckett before, and knew how tight-knit her group of homicide investigators were.

"We found small amounts of blood on the outside of the apartment, a definitive match to Detective Beckett's blood, apart from that, there are no signs of a struggle inside the apartme –"

"Esposito! In here, now!" Montgomery's voice bellowed through the entire precinct.

The Hispanic detective hurriedly obeyed his superior's command, and Castle and Ryan followed him closely.

"Sir?" Esposito queried, uncertain.

Wordlessly, Montgomery threw him the mobile he carried. A low-quality photo of Beckett was on the screen. She was sprawled on the ground, eyes closed, with countless gashes oozing blood across her face. Under it was an address to a property in a hazy area of town.

Again though, Esposito and Castle were frozen in to place, and it was Ryan who took the initiative, scrawling down the address on to a sheet of paper, God bless him.

"Captain, can you call us some back-up?"

Montgomery nodded quickly as the three men exited his door, but seemed to change his mind, grabbing his gun from a desk drawer. "I'm with you. I'll call for back-up on the way."

-CASTLE-

_12.00 Tuesday 16__th__ November (two months ago)_

"_Yo, Beckett. You alright?" Esposito approached her desk, jolting her from her reverie. She brushed her hair from her eyes, clutching the nape of her neck for a fraction of a second, before hastening to respond._

"_Yeah, fine. It's just been a long day, you know."_ And it would certainly get longer.

"Cause you've seemed preoccupied for the whole day," Ryan said loudly from behind her, startling her in to standing.

"_No. I'm okay. What are you two still doing here, anyway? I thought you both had plans for lunch."_

_Ryan looked uncomfortable and started fidgeting with the bottom of his shirt. "Uh, well, we were… um, the Captain asked us to stay."_

_Beckett could make out Esposito shaking his head out of the corner of her eyes. As far back as she could remember, Montgomery hadn't ever ordered someone to stay back during their lunch break. Yet, as she thought about it, he had walked past her several times that day with a worried look on his face. Had he ordered the boys to stay back to watch her? God, she hoped not._

_Her phone rang. Damn! She had forgotten to put it on silent. Esposito and Ryan were still watching her closely and so she picked up, trying to act unconcerned._

"_Beckett."_

"_Is this a bad time, Katie? You sound anxious. Or maybe it's just your eagerness to speak with me." Kate swallowed, trying to keep the fear from her eyes. Esposito and Ryan hadn't moved, and so she averted her eyes and stepped away from them, walking over to her desk._

"_No. As usual, you call me at your convenience."_

_She heard a small bark of laughter from the other end. _No fear, _she promised herself. She was at her desk in the precinct, for God's sake! When she was in this building, she had to behave as such._

"_You amuse me so, Katie, but even so, I find it hard to believe that so many people are after little you…" Her throat constricted the way it had at the first call. She felt trapped in the whirl of the noise in the precinct. She just wanted to end it all._

_"Who is after me?" She said it with more volume than she had intended, and Ryan, who was closer to her, snapped up his head. She shook her head at him, and moved to the break room._

_"Again, Katie, you try to make me tell you everything. Now where's the fun in that?"_

_"Go to hell," Kate whispered in to the phone._

_There was a snarl, then, "Are we back to that again? I though we had established a level of trust between us. As I recall, last time I called, you did as I asked."_

_Kate didn't reply. She was fighting the tears that were forming in her eyes, blinking them away before they could fall._

_"Fine. Just listen. After this call, you are going to walk to the window of your precinct, and you are going to look straight down at the bookshop. Do you understand me?"_

_She tried to force herself to speak, but could only feel bile rising in her throat._

_"You know what will happen if you don't. Our communications will cease. We haven't actually ended talking about your mother's case. I know things. All that would stop if you don't do as I say. Just think about it, Katie. Until next month."_

_There was a long beep. Beckett stood in the break room staring at the coffee machine Castle had brought in nearly two years ago now until her eyes glazed over. She only looked up when Ryan knocked on the door and asked her if she was okay._

_For a moment, her focus shifted to his face, before she moved right past him to the window, her face displaying no emotion. The bookshop, she told herself, directing her gaze towards the small building._

_Then, before she could react, there was a flash of light – a camera! Who used flash on cameras nowadays? Her first instinct was that it was some kind of obscene way to taunt her further, but she had no way to be sure._

_Ryan was approaching her now, Esposito tailing along behind him. Beckett felt like she would explode if she had to listen to their voices again though, despite the fact that they were her friends._

_She sprinted to the stairs, they were sure to be faster than the elevator, ignoring Ryan's calling of her name. Running down the stairs she pulled her gun out of her pocket, and as she exited the building, she held it close to her, making for the bookshop._

_The owner looked at her in alarm and began to speak as she entered. She flashed her badge by him, and he quietened immediately. Beckett went between the aisles, checking who was in the shop, before she heard the door bang shut. Rushing outside the store, she ran right in to Ryan and Esposito, but not before she caught a gloved hand disappearing around the corner of the block._

_"Beckett? What the hell was that?" Esposito grabbed her arm firmly, not releasing her despite her struggles. Suddenly feeling weak-kneed, she stopped moving, still not looking Esposito in the face. "Beckett?"_

_"I… I'm sorry. I saw something, and I though it was… never mind." She pushed past the two men and walked back to the precinct, acutely aware that she was being followed by the both of them._

_Not saying anything to them she walked straight in to the Women's bathroom, locking herself in to a cubicle and falling against the door, grateful for the isolation._

_-_CASTLE-

The only thing that had gone through Castle's mind as they had driven to the address was to drive faster. Now that they had arrived, though, he was afraid of what they would find.

From the photograph, it was impossible to determine whether Beckett was simply unconscious, or… he forced himself to think the thought, dead. As they advanced on the building, a small warehouse-like structure, Esposito turned to him again and handed Castle his gun again, nodding silently at him in a gesture that was as much for himself as it was for Castle.

Montgomery approached the door and knocked on it loudly. "NYPD! Open this door, now!" Castle listened intently, trying to make out any sound. There was none.

Moving aside, Montgomery motioned Esposito forward, and he bashed in to the door, letting light pour in to the structure. It took all of them a moment for their eyes to adjust, before Ryan and Esposito shone their torches around the room. It was Ryan's torch that caught her small figure bundled on the ground.

"Kate!" Castle was at her side before the others had processed the image in front of them. Beckett was lying leaning against the wall, her face pale, eyes closed. Montgomery felt fear consuming him as he approached her – his best detective, the closest thing that he had to a daughter.

"Ryan, call an ambulance," He said to the frantic young man beside him.

Castle was crouched by her, his fingers on her neck, but his hand was shaking so badly that he didn't seem to be having any luck in determining whether or not she had a pulse. "Kate! Please!" He moved both hands so that they were covering hers.

Esposito, who had a limited medical training, shifted his body and replaced Castle's fingers at her neck. His hope had been growing dimmer, as he approached her, he hadn't seen any sign of breathing, and she had been completely unresponsive. His fingers replaced Castle's on her neck.

Removing his fingers, he looked Castle straight in the eye.

**A/N: I feel a bit mean for doing that, but isn't that what we're meant to do? Leave you wanting more (at least, I hope it's working…).**

**Oh, and I cannot wait for Setup and Countdown to air. The wait has been driving me crazy! Just watched the sneak peeks (I wish I hadn't now, I'm going to be sitting through school thinking about Castle and Beckett when I should be thinking about Quadratics…). Random fact – Setup airs on my birthday… **** Guess what I'll be doing?**

**I'm just figuring out how to put breaks between the sections in my chapters now (yes, very slow...) but for now it'll be 'CASTLE' (capitalised).**

**Next update will probably be in a week, unless, by some miracle I little or no homework (this will almost definitely not happen).**


	9. Chapter 9

Esposito kept his eyes on Castle as he yelled for Ryan to get the ambulance to hurry.

"Is she going to be all right?" That was Castle, frantic, the desperation evident in his voice. His hands were literally cradling her head, yet there was a horrific twist to the image. Beckett's head was lolled to the side, falling in to Castle's hands. The blood had soaked through and dried through the material of her shirt, making it look almost as though she had been shot. Javier had been quick to assess her physical state, and aside from the fact that her pulse was too damned erratic for her survival to be assured, she didn't seem to have any noticeable physical injuries. _Noticeable? _He spat the thought in his mind. There was a particularly deep cut that he had just noticed on the side of her neck that begged to differ.

"She needs an ambulance, now." Esposito pulled off his jacket and pulled it around the shoulders of his unmoving boss. The words were nothing but the truth. Despite that, seeing Castle's disbelieving expression, he hastened to add, "Beckett's strong though. She'll make it."

"Kate, please," Castle murmured in to Beckett's hair. "I _need _you to pull through this. Please, Kate. For me."

Montgomery had turned away when Castle had started speaking to her. Every word out of his mouth was spoken so gently, so adoringly. It would be too much of a waste if the two of them didn't get to live their lives together. If neither of them admitted how much each meant to the other. Montgomery shook his head sadly, retreating to the outside of the building, where Ryan stood waiting for the ambulance, his face a knotted expression of something that was almost grief, but filled with specks of hope.

"Go inside Ryan. I'll be out here."

The young man looked up at him, his vividly blue eyes laced with indescribable concern. "Is she… alive, sir?"

Montgomery exhaled deeply. "Barely. Castle's keeping her going though. I'm counting on you and Esposito to keep the both of them strong."

"Yes, sir." Ryan almost ran to the doors. Montgomery simply stood there, hoping against hope, praying, that Kate Beckett would live to see the love for her in Castle's eyes.

-CASTLE-

"_Please sir, let her go."_

"_Move away from_ _her."_

The voices of all the medical personnel seemed to haze together in the instant that they started to pull him away from her. He wouldn't let her go. He needed her. Didn't they understand that? Kate was his oxygen. He needed her. He _needed _her.

"Castle, come on," Esposito's soft voice pulled him in to standing. The moment that he let go of her, a swarm of blue shirts enveloped her, pulling her tiny, limp frame on to a stretcher, checking her vital signs as they boarded the ambulance. All through this, Rick stood there, watching, being held up by Esposito, Ryan unfaltering by his side.

"I want to go with her." He managed to say through the bile that rose in his throat as he saw an oxygen mask being pulled over Kate's pallid features. Pulling free from Esposito's grasp, he made his way forward to the ambulance. It felt to him as though the very air was rushing against him, trying to stop him from reaching her. Why did everything have to work against the idea of he and Kate? Even they themselves behaved as though they were utterly clueless of the feelings that each harboured, guarding too close to themselves.

Ryan had whispered something in the ear of one of the lead EMTs and Castle was allowed to board without argument. Within the whirlwind of medical jargon and bustle of the blue shirts and equipment, Rick sat, holding Kate's hand in fear, willing those vibrant eyes to open and be filled with passion. How lacking they had been in passion recently.

As he watched her, he noticed that her brow was furrowed, as if in pain. It had been like that since when they had found her but he had been too afraid to realise.

In that moment Rick promised himself that he was going to find the son of a bitch, this Spider, that had harmed Kate this badly and he was going to make him wish for an exit as easy as death from the hell that Rick was going to turn his life in to.

-CASTLE-

"What are we going to do if…" Lanie's voice was overcome with tears as she collapsed against Esposito. They were all sitting outside a hospital room. She, Esposito, Ryan, Jenny, and Montgomery…Castle had been pacing repetitively around the room, his face a stony mask displaying next to no emotion. Alexis and Martha had turned up in attempt to calm him down. Needless to say, it had been a futile attempt, and the former had by now fallen asleep against her grandmother's shoulder.

Javier held on to Lanie's hand tightly. It was all he could do. He had no response to the question she had started to ask.

It had been like that for a long while. Alexis asleep, Martha muttering from time to time for her son to stop pacing about, Lanie and Esposito drawing comfort in each other as Ryan and Jenny did, Montgomery standing aside not wishing to allow his pain to be apparent. Castle... God only knew what kind of torment he was forcing himself through.

There was the sound of footsteps behind them. "Captain Montgomery…?" Came a hoarse whisper.

Montgomery spun around to face the man in behind him. "Mr Beckett, call me Roy. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances. I am very sorry for what has happened to your daughter. Kate is one of my best."

Jim Beckett permitted himself a small smile. "She would have been glad to hear you say that. She was always saying it was a great honour to work with you." Turning to look at the rest of the group, he made to include them. "All of you."

Ryan blinked back his tears, and sensed Esposito, always seeming to be so strong and macho, doing the same beside him. Lanie let out a small sob and buried herself in Esposito's chest. Martha and Jenny smiled solemnly, representing the extension of the close-knit homicide detectives.

Castle looked at the man, feeling a wave of uncontrollable guilt wash over him. If only he had noticed. There were so many signs that she wasn't herself. He prided himself on being able to pick out all the minute facial signals that others missed. What use was that if he couldn't apply the skill when it actually mattered? Now Kate was unconscious in the other room, barely alive, because of his inability to realise her pain.

"Richard Castle?" It took Rick a moment to realise that Kate's father was addressing him.

He nodded several times more than he ought to have in response.

Then, Jim did something Castle didn't expect. He held out his hand. "Thank you for looking out for my daughter. Katie likes to think she can handle it all, just like her mother, my Jo," Jim closed his eyes for a moment in what was a flicker of deep, personal grief, "but the truth is, we all need someone sometimes to lean on. Thank you, Rick."

"Always, Mr Beckett." Rick accepted the proffered hand, feeling a momentary happiness replace the remorse, before allowing it to consume him again.

Beckett's father nodded once, his face grave, before walking away from him. "Roy. Could you tell me what exactly happened to my daughter? I was never actually told how badly hurt she was or why."

"Of course, Mr Beckett," Montgomery hesitated, before beckoning a hand around the corner. "Would you mind coming around here? I think it'd be better if we didn't wake Mr Castle's daughter."

"Yes, of course. Detectives, Doctor Parish, Mr Castle," Jim said softly in parting, receiving muted responses from the four of them. Martha suddenly stood up, causing Alexis to stir slightly, but still remain sleeping.

"Jim, as one parent to another, I know how you feel. The day that my son was almost shot…" her voice trailed off and tears threatened to fall from her eyes. "That day… I've never been so scared in my life. But you know your daughter. You know Kate. She'll get through this and she'll shake it off as nothing. You've got to believe it though, Jim."

Jim Beckett nodded in acknowledgement of what she said. "I believe it, Martha. I believe it more than I have ever believed anything in my life. I know my daughter."

"Good." Martha seemed to be at a loss for words otherwise. "Good."

Montgomery and Jim rounded the corner to a more private area of the hospital to discuss… Castle knew what they would discuss.

_The doctor that had been working on her finally exited the room Castle had been staring in to the door of for over the past four hours. "Family of Kate Beckett?"_

"_You can speak to us," Montgomery said._

"_Is she going to be all right?" Castle asked at the same time._

_The doctor seemed to accept the group of them. "I'm Doctor Johnson, I was the head physician who assessed her condition."_

"_What happened to her?" Castle again.  
Doctor Johnson took in a deep breath. "She sustained a severe concussion, several of her fingers were broken, and she had some quite deep cuts along her neck and on her upper body, some of which I believe may be self inflicted."_

"_What? That's not possible. She would never do anything like that!" Lanie protested. Esposito held her back, stopping her from saying anything further, drawing her closer to him._

_Castle, the most perceptive of them, noticed a dark look in the doctor's eyes. "That's not all, is it?"_

_The doctor sighed in resignation. "Her right hand was badly cut, however, it was in the process of healing, already having been stitched up."_

_Ryan and Castle both almost exclaimed at this. They had seen the bandage, yet hadn't guessed what it had been covering. Montgomery silenced the both of them with a raised hand._

"_It wasn't, however, any of those things that poses the greatest danger to her life. We found evidence of a toxic substance in her bloodstream, which we identified to be the venom of a Funnel Web spider. We managed to remove the venom for the most part from her system over the course of the time we were operating on her. Right now we have her hooked up to an IV and are trying to stabilise her condition. I don't suppose I have to say that we'll be keeping her for the next two, maybe three days, minimum."_

_There was a long silence._

"_Can we see her?" Lanie was the one that broke it._

"_Not yet. Perhaps in a few hours time. There is one more thing regarding her condition though. Which of you is the closest to her?"_

_All eyes unconsciously turned to Castle, who shifted uneasily. "Her father will be arriving soon. But if you have something to tell one of us, you can tell all of us."_

_Doctor Johnson seemed hesitant, his eyes resting on Ryan's youthful face, before again heaving a sigh. "Miss Beckett – "_

"_Detective Beckett." Castle, Ryan, Esposito and Montgomery automatically corrected in unison._

"_I'm sorry, there is evidence to suggest that Detective Beckett was sexually assaulted." Castle collapsed in to a chair at this. Lanie's eyes widened in utter horror. Even the Montgomery couldn't stop a whisper of, 'son of a bitch,' from escaping his lips._

"_I am very sorry." Doctor Johnson said again. Receiving no response, he continued. "I'll let you know when you can see her."_

_Then, he retreated, leaving the fragments of the broken family of the 12__th__ precinct, struggling to piece themselves back together._

-CASTLE-

They had let him go first. Even before her father. Why they had let him do that was beyond him at the present moment. Right now he was only focused on one thing. _Kate._

As he was led to her room, he found himself dreading, again, what he would find. He had described plenty a hospital scene in his Derek Storm, yet it was different when it was being experienced for real. When the factors at stake were the lives of the people you loved rather than the paycheck for a book.

The nurse left him at the door of the room. Summoning his nerve, he pushed the door handle down, entering the room.

And there she lay. The image of broken perfection. The oxygen tube was still attached to her mouth, helping her breathe. What kind of a world was this, where the strongest of the strong needed help to _breathe?_

Her skin was ashy pale, no traces of colour to be found in the flawless contours of her face. Even like this, even so close to death, she was beautiful.

"I'm so sorry, Kate." He murmured so softly that it was almost to himself, twisting his fingers in her hair. It was splayed across the sheets, contrasting too much with her pallid features.

Through all this though, the thing that he noticed most of all was that the crease of pain was still there on her forehead. A constant, unrelenting reminder of her pain.

Castle bent down and brushed his lips against her forehead. "I'm sorry."

**A/N: So, I feel like I've rushed through a lot in this chapter. Again, I'm sure that it's not at all correct medically or procedurally. And that'd be my fault.**

**As usual, I'm always up for reviews (more like ecstatic to have them). I feel like such an idiot for not having thanked you for the reviews that have been submitted. It means a lot to me that you have taken the time to write it.**

**Yet again, I think the next update will be in a week, though possibly a day or two less than that. I'm not too sure as of yet, though. Then again, I might never update again as there is always the possibility that I die of anticipation for Countdown ('I just want you to know how much I lo-' are they trying to kill us?). That was a joke (I just thought I'd say so, because if it's typed it doesn't come across in quite the same way).**


	10. Chapter 10

_12.20 Thursday 16__th__ December 2010 (one month ago)_

"_Yo, Beckett, we got another lead. Check out the wife's financials." Esposito walked over to his boss' table, Ryan flanking him, and placed the file in front of her._

_Kate was perched precariously on her chair, her head tilting firmly downward over her knees. The mass of her hair was strewn across her shoulders messily. Her head was throbbing and she felt so cold, even with her coat wrapped tightly around her body._

"_Beckett?" Ryan said hesitantly, touching her shoulder. Exchanging a worried look with Esposito at the lack of response, he shook her gently. "Beckett?"_

_Her head snapped up instantly, looking directly at Ryan. "Sorry, Ryan, what was it?"_

"_Yeah… not gonna happen, Beckett. What the hell's going on?" Esposito asked forcefully, propping himself up on her table and looking down at her._

"_And where's Castle?" Ryan added in curiousity._

_Beckett leaned back in her chair. "He's in the break room. Martha came by to talk to him about something. I think she mentioned Alexis." Exhaling slowly, she unconsciously wrapped her gloved fingers around her dark scarf, and shook her hair from her face. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could make out that neither of the boys had moved._

Go away. Please. Go away.

"_Come on Beckett, what's going on?" Ryan attempted. The wonderful thing about Ryan as a detective was that when he asked questions he could always make them seem so non-threatening. There was no hint of violence or anger in anything he said._

"_Nothing," Kate caught the disbelieving look that passed between them. "Really. What'd you find?"  
Although both Ryan and Esposito seemed hesitant they both hid it well. Allowing herself to become immersed in the details of the case she tried to forget the message that had been running through her mind repeatedly._

Why hasn't he called yet? _Why hasn't he called yet?_ Why?

_Feigning realisation as the boys took her through what they found she told them to chase up the lead. It was a safe answer that she had used many a time when she had been unable to focus. No matter what the case leads could always be chased._

Why hasn't he called yet?

_"Did you ever want to die your hair?" A strangely serious voice sharply broke her reverie. Castle had slid in to the seat beside her._

_Blinking several times while facing away from him to clear her head, she replied as soon as she felt she could. "No. Why?"_

_"Alexis told my mother that she wants to die her hair blonde temporarily for a school production because everyone else is. She wants to artificially alter a physical aspect of herself. I mean, if that isn't body image issues, what is?"_

_All the words Castle seemed to blur together. It was so cold. She tried to pull the coat impossibly tighter still around her shoulders. Moaning softly, she swayed where she sat._

_"Beckett? You okay?" Castle was instantly alert, all attention on her._

_Montgomery took that moment to walk to Beckett's table. "Beckett, I need you to talk to the husband. We've got him in the interrogation room."_

_Looking up bleary-eyed, she nodded to her superior. "Yes, sir. Give me a few minutes to check through some information on him."_

_"Don't keep him waiting for too long. It'd be a good advantage if we could get to think that we're on his side." Montgomery walked purposefully back in to his office._

_"Beckett, are you sick?" Castle asked. It had been over a year since she had actually found Castle truly annoying, but right now she found herself wishing he would momentarily disappear._

_Not responding she stood up, before getting dizzy and falling backwards heavily. Castle caught her back, steadying her, guiding her back to her seat._

_Shivering, she felt a brief surge of warmth around her back and saw Castle pulling his scarf over her own. "Thank you." She managed to force the speech._

_"I'm taking you home, Beckett. You're sick. Really sick."_

_Beckett felt powerless and disoriented. She didn't understand what was happening. Just that she he hadn't called yet._

_"What time is it?" She whispered to Castle._

_He lifted his watch so she could look at the time. 12:33._

_-Suddenly the screen of the watch popped off, the metal clanging loudly on the floor, a spider crawling out of the watch._

_With her breathing speeding up dangerously, Kate looked up, trying to find reassurance with Castle's face. It was gone. All she could see was darkness._

_A black hand reached out grabbing her arm and jerking her close to him, pulling on her hair. His hand forced itself down her shirt, allowing a spider to fall in to the gap he created. The crawling over her bare skin made her cry out in agony. She felt the pincers pierce her flesh just under her-_

"Beckett!" Castle yelled for the third time.

An instant wave of relief crashed over her, and she felt the line between nightmare and reality being redrawn. Nothing had happened one month ago. No spiders. He hadn't called, that was all. She had been sick, that was all. No spiders.

Just when she managed to control the pace of her breathing, the panic started to consume her again as she realised her surroundings. She way lying in a hospital bed, the bare skin of her arm exposed over the white sheets of almost the same whitish colouration. Trying to move, she realised how weak she felt. Pathetic, just like he said she was.

Castle was sitting on a white plastic chair beside her bed. Judging from the dark rings around his eyes, he had been awake there for a while. Her stomach knotted as she thought of him watching her unconscious. She hoped she hadn't said anything.

His fingers were still on her shoulders, holding her down on the bed. Letting go momentarily, he seemed to change his mind, instead with his right hand reaching over to the side of her face and caressing the hair from around her eyes. It was the touch of a lover.

And yet… she could still feel his touch on her face. This felt like a contrived echo of that. Recoiling from his touch, and feeling terror rise in her throat, she forced herself to look at Castle, to make him understand that she wasn't retreating from his touch, but from the memories that rose with it.

"Castle, what happened?" She managed to make out a hoarse whisper even though she knew exactly what. It was more a tactic to find out how much he knew. Ignoring her questions, he instead immediately picked up on the dryness of her throat; grabbing a glass cup filled with water.

"Plenty of time for that story later. Let me help you sit up." Putting the cup down on the table by her bed, he moved a pillow so she could lie in a less horizontal position. She felt horrid, lying there unable to do anything but fall back in to the pillow. He lifted the water and she drank greedily, trying to draw in all the fluids she could in to her body.

"Easy, Beckett," Castle said as he took away the half-empty glass. "I should call you dad. He said to call when you woke up." Reaching in to his pocket, he took out his phone.

"Wait! Castle – my dad is here?"

Castle nodded. "What did you expect, Beckett? You were damn near killed. Something we will talk about in the near future. But right now, you should try and get some rest."

Kate felt her eyelids drooping. "Castle…"

"What is it?"

Reaching out to twist her fingers in to his, she managed to murmur; "Will you stay?" before falling in to a less troubled sleep than her last.

"Always."

-CASTLE-

"Katie?" Jim said softly, stroking his daughter's face as her eyes blinked open.

Her face twisted in to a tired smile upon seeing him. It was an expression that hadn't crossed her face in far too long. "Dad, what are you doing here?"

Shaking his head, Jim looked in to her eyes, his face displaying a mixture of relief and fear. "How much do you remember about what happened to you, Katie?"

Her father was blinking away tears, and Kate felt moisture welling up in her eyes as well against all her will. Jim reached over her, seeing the truth in her eyes, pulling her in to an awkward one-armed hug. "Everything."

"Did it really happen? Did you really get…" She nodded quickly in response, not wanting her father to have to say what had happened aloud. After his recovering from his alcohol addiction, he had become painfully protective of her, as if in retribution for his sins in neglecting her after her mother's death.

In that private moment they shared, Kate saw in her eyes all the pain her father was hiding. It wasn't a fluke that she was so adept at hiding her emotions. Her father lived with the same emotions as she every day, and had adapted to convey to any unknowing observer that he was simply living a quiet, unmarried life. Little or no people knew of the emotional baggage he carried, and the rituals he went through daily to remember his Joanna.

Castle chose to enter then, loudly swinging the door open, then shut. "How are you feeling, Beckett?"

"Like I've been bitten by a spider," she replied, unable to mask the bitterness in her voice, or the shudder that came over her upon saying the word.

"Jim, I can stay with her for a while if you want to grab something to eat." Castle offered to the older man, who seemed to realise that there was something that needed to be said between the other two. He got up and walked to the door.

"Ask for me if you need anything, Katie," He said, now allowing the relief to seep in to his voice. His daughter would be fine. "Thank you again, Rick."

The door closed behind Jim, leaving a silence that neither Kate nor Rick wanted to break.

"So when do I get out of here?" Kate asked, knowing that no matter the answer, it wouldn't be nearly as soon as she hoped.

Rick shook his head. "Don't expect it to be soon, Beckett. They expected you to wake up yesterday, but you only ended up waking for the first time this morning when I was here, I'm doubt you remember it though. They said they want to keep you here for another three days. Apparently you haven't been eating or drinking nearly enough for the last couple of weeks."

Rolling her eyes at him, she found herself almost smiling. "And here I thought you'd say I'd be discharged within the hour." God, although she'd never admit it, she loved being in Castle's company so damned much. It was so much more effortless to smile or laugh than it was when she was with the others.

"Oh. I almost forgot. Where's Josh?"

"I'm sorry, what?" She hadn't told him, had she? Josh was gone. He was no longer a variable in her life. She was free now to… but it couldn't be now.

"Josh. We've been trying to contact him but his number wasn't on your cell. How can I get through to him?" Did Castle really care that much that she was with Josh? That she was happy with him? Damn. But it couldn't be now anyway, so she might as well make it easier for him. Kate was sure he cared about her in the same way.

"Um, Josh is in Australia. There was a flood there and he's doing what he can." Castle didn't seem to realise the lie was said through gritted teeth. All she really wanted was to…

"Oh. I'm sorry, I wouldn't have asked. Do you want to call him?"

Shaking her head, she looked down at her fingers. There were white bandages wrapped around the ends of her fingers and she could still feel the stitches Josh had sewn on her hand. The needle sticking in to the inside of her arm throbbed slightly but could easily be ignored. What bothered her though, and God forbid she think it – scared her, was that she felt so weak and her mind was working so slowly. Her movements felt delayed and even moving her hands from one side to another made her feel light-headed.

They had lapsed again in to silence. Again, it was a comfortable one. This time, Kate decided to let Rick – Castle – be the one to initiate discussion. She did hope he wouldn't bring up Josh again. A person could only lie so many times before giving in to temptation.

"You really scared me when you woke up before, you know," Castle said. She looked at him in confusion. He was right before – she didn't remember anything from before except the nightmare. "You were… muttering things in your sleep, at first they were quiet, and then you started moving – thrashing about – in the bed. You kept saying, 'please,' and… and you asked… you said, 'kill me'." He looked at her, as if daring her to offer an explanation or deny it or see any reaction from her at all, yet she lay there, her eyes open, staring blankly in to the roof and waiting for him to continue speaking.

"I tried to wake you up, except the moment I… touched you, you started to scream. Not loudly, but it was frantic. Your breathing got really fast and I almost called the doctor, even though he'd just left but right before I was going to, you opened your eyes. For a split second though, you were looking at me and you didn't recognise me. You just kept screaming and…"

"Stop. Please. I'm sorry, it's just that what he did to me. I don't even remember all of it, but…" All the tears she had been holding back suddenly fell down her face.

Castle, watching her, felt an uncontrollable fury grow inside of him. The more he heard her pain, felt it, like the tears he was brushing away on his hand, or saw it, through that crease on her forehead that was still there, the more he wanted to run out of the hospital and locate and kill the Spider for doing this to her.

"Kate," he whispered in to her ear, kneeling down beside her bed. "Promise me that whatever happens, you won't do anything else alone. Talk to me, talk to Ryan and Esposito, talk to your father, just don't do anything alone."

The shivers that had started to run down her spine at his saying her first name were replaced by the crawl of her skin at his very real, and very touching concern. It was all she could do to tilt her head downward slowly to acknowledge her promise.

-CASTLE-

She was still alive. That was something. At least this way she could truly be destroyed by what was coming her way.

"Just wait, Katie," he whispered in to the darkness of his home as he felt a familiar eight-legged creature crawling over his wrist. "Until next month."

Of course, the journey till then would be just as brilliant as the destination.

**A/N: The call flashback was my little homage to that little niche of a genre 'sick-fics' (I think that's what they are). Maybe some of you have also spotted the little reference of my home country, Australia. I just had to throw it in there somewhere…**

**I'm sure you know that I appreciate each and every review. It seems like there's a little group of people following my story who really like this kind of genre, and I'm glad that you do.**

**Oh, and on a sidenote, I find myself wishing that Josh was gone in real Castle for good. **

**I think this chapter was a little bit longer than some of my previous ones, so I hope you enjoy it. Until next week! (would've said, 'next month,' too, if I could've)**


	11. Chapter 11

**This has some of the more graphic plot elements from before included in flashbacks.**

"What do you remember about what happened?" Ryan asked gently. It took her a while to process the question, mainly because her main thought was that she was on the wrong side of the table.

"_So, Katie, you and I are about to get to know one another a lot better." She felt fingers wrapping themselves around her shoulders and sensed her breathing speeding up. She couldn't hear anything other than her rapid breaths and his heavy ones._

_Feeling a pressure on her chest, she realised he was sitting over her. The breath caught in her throat, and her last clear realisation before she fell in to a complete state of panic was that his tongue was sliding across her neck._

Jolting herself back to reality she wrapped her arms around her chest, digging her elbows hard in to her body. She felt fear consuming her, as she had when she was in that shed, with him crawling all over her.

"I'm sorry we have to do this, Beckett. We can carry on later if you'd rather do that," Ryan tried to make her feel better in his own way.

Shaking her head, she tried to pull herself together. "I remember that it was at night. Five nights ago now…?" She paused, shivering slightly as though she was back outside then. Esposito shifted uncomfortably beside her. "I was standing outside my new apartment and I was about to switch on the GPS on my phone. Just as I pulled it out of my pocket I…"

She had requested that Esposito and Ryan be the only ones in the room. If Castle were he she wasn't sure she'd be able to resist the urge to fall in to his arms and let her tears soak in to his jacket. As it was, Esposito placed a hand on her shoulder, shocking her momentarily, but ultimately calming her.

"He put me in the boot of his car and I think I must've passed out cause the next thing I remember is being pulled out of the car."

_Kate was jerked back in to reality with a similar motion on her arm. She was pulled in to a sitting position and then dragged from the car. When she tried to walk, her captor realised she was awake and covered her eyes with his hand before she could see or say anything._

_She heard a door being pulled open and forced herself to keep walking. Then, she was dropped on to the floor and she felt her own handcuffs being pulled around her wrists by gloved fingers and a blindfold shoved over her eyes._

"He made sure I couldn't see anything as soon as he realised I was awake. He handcuffed me and pushed me to the floor and…" Heaving a breath, she again felt Esposito by her side, and Ryan had stopped writing down what she said, listening only.

He moved forward, putting a hand on her knee. Involuntarily she felt herself pulling away from the touch, and Ryan removed his hand immediately, looking apologetic. "Sorry, Beckett. Uh, you only have to relive this once though. After we get him you can watch him rot in jail from afar."

"Like the scum he is," Esposito added darkly.

She almost allowed herself a harsh laugh before continuing with what she was saying. It was still taking her far too long to think and get back on track for her liking.

"I could feel him sitting over me. He had me pinned down so I couldn't move. And…" The images in front of her suddenly blurred with tears that she promised herself she would never allow to fall.

_Feeling a pressure on her chest, she realised he was sitting over her. The breath caught in her throat, and her last clear realisation before she fell in to a complete state of panic was that his tongue was sliding across her neck._

"Damn." She whispered under her breath.

Esposito reached over, trying again to calm her, instead panicking her when he grabbed her arm. She screamed at the contact.

…_his tongue was sliding across her neck…_

His tongue. Esposito? Ryan? _Castle?_

The Spider. What the hell was she thinking? Ryan and Esposito? Hell, what had he done to her to make her start thinking along that train of thought?

…_his tongue was sliding across her neck…_

Oh God. He had really…

"_Please!"_

_His tongue flicked across her neck, almost skilfully, pressing itself harder and harder against her pallid skin. Her head was throbbing and her hand, underneath the combined weight of the two of them, felt as if it had been set alight and left to burn._

"_What did you say, Katie?" He thrust his lips against hers, using his fingers to block her nose so that when she inevitably tried to breathe, her open mouth met his tongue and he was able to force himself in to her being. _

_His delight was matched only by her terror, she struggled, movements becoming increasingly weak, while his advances became more frenzied, more naturalised, like he had done this infinite times before this time with her._

_When he suddenly released her, she felt fear gripping her, and was hardly conscious of her own body. Her head fell to the side and her eyes, open under the blindfold, stared blankly in to the darkness it created._

_The next thing she felt clearly were fingers fumbling with her shirt, pulling it up, and his dirty hands thrusting themselves up to touch – _

"Beckett!"

"Castle?" Kate muttered, standing up immediately. An immediate feeling of light-headedness followed and she fell back in to the precinct chair. Her vision had faded out for a moment when she had stood up too quickly, and now she as it came back she realised it was just Ryan and Esposito she was with. It was strange, the way Ryan had said her name had sounded so much like Castle back in the hospital.

"Not quite," Ryan responded in a way that made her certain that at any other time he would have been exchanging a look with Esposito for her mention of the writer. "Are you okay, Beckett?"

"Yeah," she murmured, more to herself. "What was I saying?"

"No way, Beckett. Not after you zone out like that and almost pass out on us talking about what happened. We'll pick this up later."

She was spared the difficulty of having to reply when a knock sounded at the door. Or not. It was Montgomery.

"Detective, how're you doing?" He asked her. It was the first time she'd seen him since being hospitalised. She suspected that as soon as she was functioning again he would not be so forgiving. He would surely drill her till she told him why she hadn't told him about the threats that the Spider had directed at her.

"Fine, sir." She replied, smiling, although it was obvious to all the others more than it was to her how fake the smile was. It was another of the habits she had developed over the past several months, fake cheerfulness.

"Actually, sir, Ryan and I were about to drive Detective Beckett back home," Esposito told the Captain. Beckett whipped around to glare at him, instantly regretting it though, as the rapid motion made her feel nauseated. Lowering her head in to her hands, she cursed the timing.

"Good. And you both make sure she doesn't turn up here until Monday, at the earliest," Montgomery said, "Are you hearing me, Beckett?"

"Sir, that's five days from now," She responded, trying to stop her voice from quivering. The attempt was unsuccessful and was met with raised eyebrows from the Captain.

"And you damn well need them. I've also posted a security detail by your apartment. They are there and they are there to stay." Unconsciously, the minds of all of them drew back to the time when her apartment had been blown up by the work of Scott Dunn. Montgomery gave her a strict nod, before leaving the room.

He did have a point insofar as she felt as though she would never be able to function at optimal capacity again, and although it pained her to do so, she allowed herself to nod in response. "Yes, sir."

Ryan and Esposito were quick to help her up and pull the small amount of belongings she had been able to carry with her that day in to a compact bundle. Through this, she stood leaning against the brick wall, nodding weak greetings to the other regular homicide detectives.

Just as they were walking towards the elevator, the sight of Castle disembarking from it greeted them. In his hands, he held two plastic coffee cups, one of which he handed to Beckett as he reached her. The warmth that seeped in to her fingers was bliss. "Thank you."

"Of course." He made it sound like it was an obvious thing. "You know, you don't look very well. What are you doing in the precinct?" There it was again, that deep, sincere concern in his voice. He made it incredibly difficult. But while the Spider was still out there, she couldn't make it apparent that she felt strongly for him. It would only make him and those around him a target, like Josh had been.

"Oh, we were just going to take her home," Ryan told Castle chirpily.

"I can do that." The eagerness in his voice was far too apparent, and both Ryan and Esposito sensed it easily. Beckett seemed not to have noticed who was saying what. She looked incredibly small beside them, her coat and scarf wrapped around her, and clutching the coffee with both hands near her face.

"Yeah. Why not?" Esposito replied, shrugging his shoulders and dragging the open-mouthed Ryan away with him back in to the swirling mass of noise and chaos that was their workplace.

Castle took the sight of Beckett in for a moment. All bundled up she looked so incredibly fragile and unlike her usual self. He hadn't thought about if at great length before, but he couldn't remember any case when she'd ever been so battered that she'd needed to be hospitalised. Maybe a few once-overs in the back of an ambulance, but never anything further.

"Come on. Let's get you home," Castle walked over to her and playfully held her arm as he led her to the elevator. She looked pale and sickly for a fraction of a second while glancing at his arm in worry before passively allowing him to dictate her movements.

"You know, you don't have to drive me," It sounded ridiculous, even to herself, especially as she could tell how drained she felt after so little movement. She felt like she had to say something though.

Castle rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, Beckett. You look like you're about to pass out any moment. There is no way that I'm going to let you drive today."

By the time they reached the car, they had lapsed in to a silence that screamed out at the both of them to be broken. Not by any mindless small talk though, by any measure, but by something infinitely more meaningful.

"Beckett – " Castle said suddenly, turning to face her,

"Castle – " Beckett said at the same time, with quiet intensity.

Both looked away from each other as they pulled their respective car doors open and lowered themselves in to the seat. Beckett snuck a glance at Castle, who was putting his key in the ignition. As the car roared to life, she turned her head in the other direction, leaning uncomfortably against Castle's large passenger seat.

It was Castle who snuck a glance at her then. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was even. He couldn't tell whether she was asleep, and if she was, he didn't want to disturb her rest. If she wasn't, she clearly wasn't in any mindset to talk with him.

The drive took just over twenty minutes in the midday traffic. Upon arriving, Castle was certain that Beckett had drifted off. Resisting the urge to reach out and hold her in his arms, he called out to her softly, not wanting to alarm her.

She awoke instantly. Her eyes were again frenzied for a fraction of a second, before the look dissipated as she realised her surroundings.

"What's wrong?" Castle asked her, not wanting to pry, but curious.

She shook her head, the crease that had been absent in her confusion in the past few hours reappearing. "I don't know, Castle. What he did to me really scared me." Taking a breath, she saw Castle looking at her, waiting for her to continue. Biting her lip, she let herself do so. "Every time I wake up, I'm afraid that it'll be in that shed, with him. I don't want to sleep, but at the same time, I don't want to have to live."

The moment the words left her lips, she wished she could take them back. The horrified expression that crossed Castle's face was all she needed to realise that the thought wasn't one she should mention in front of him.

"Never say that," Castle whispered, unconsciously moving closer to her in the car, again taking hold of her arm. This time she didn't react. "Kate, we're going to catch this guy. I promise you that I will catch this Spider and I will put him away for so long that he'll wish that he was never born."

Lifting her arm, she covered his fingers with hers. "Thank you, Rick. That's… sweet."

"No. It's not sweet." His eyes had none of their usual humour. "It's a promise."

-CASTLE-

She hadn't been sure what to do for five days. It was only Friday and she had already run out of things to do. Her limited belongings did little to help her too.

Frustrated, she had gone outside for a walk. The cool air of the early evening usually cleared her head, and yet all she could find herself concentrating on was the noise. Children calling to one another, adults yelling for them, cars blaring across the roads, the general clamour of public movement.

Unable to focus out there, she had decided to move about within her apartment. Starting with push-ups, then sit-ups, then moving on to chin-ups. She did all this without bothering to change from her jeans.

Halfway through her twenty-ninth chin-up, her mobile phone rang. She considered ignoring it, but the caller ID was listed as _Unknown. _Although she feared the Spider more than death itself now, if it was him calling, she was certain he would tell her something that would be worth hearing on her part. It wasn't.

"Detective Beckett?"  
"Yeah."

"This is John Raglan. I was the lead investigator on your mother's homicide 12 years ago."

**A/N: I'm sure you all know where this is going. Knockdown territory. It seems quite silly now though, it being so long ago and everyone now being so Setup/Countdown oriented, but I hope that you are still willing to read about it if it has been 'Spiderised'.**

**I have a new story up too, called Tattoo, but I find that although that one has received more reviews over a shorter period of time, that this one is ultimately a better written story. Plus it is my first fanfiction so it'll likely always be more special.**

**Reviews are like candles, lighting and warming up my little Castillion world, just like the coffee's Castle and Beckett share.**


	12. Chapter 12

"You're hit!" Castle exclaimed frantically.

"I'm fine, it's not my blood." No. It was Detective Raglan's. Detective Raglan who had contacted her about her mother's case after all these years. How could he get shot now? She bit her lips. _It wasn't her blood._

It was her mother's blood.

Hopelessness crashed all over her in a sudden, overwhelming wave. The Spider was right. She would never solve the case.

-CASTLE-

"He's sweet on you – makes him brave." His voice made her skin crawl. It was like _his _voice. So similar in his sneer, his snarl, and yet it had a far more serious tone. Simmons knew what he was talking about.

"Look. At. Me." She thrust a photograph of her mother in front of him. _The _photograph. She tried not to remember the image that had been overlayed on it. "Tell me you don't remember her."

"I think I do remember her. Rich bitch from uptown." His cruel smile pierced in to her outwardly icy exterior. "Someone should have warned her not to feed the animals."

"You –" Fury welled up inside of her. She could feel Castle's eyes beside her, warning her, trying to calm her.

Simmons stood up now, eyes patronising. "From what I hear though, she was pretty tasty."

Letting out a guttural scream, she slammed the table forward, shoving him against the wall. The glass cracked deafeningly, and yet she could hardly hear it through all the blood pounding in her ears. She could vaguely see Castle getting up in the cracks of the glass.

"Beckett!" Castle yelled.

"Back away, Castle!"

The door swung open loudly, and Ryan and Esposito made their way in to the room, faces alarmed.

"Stand down."  
"Beckett, that's enough!"

She could hear phrases swirling around in her mind. Warnings. Threats. All she could see were the cold eyes of the man she had pinned against the mirror. Then he shook his head, his eyes sparkling with laughter.

"Word around town is that you are as well." Simmons spat, his saliva running down her neck. Beckett almost recoiled, memories flooding back through her as much as she tried to block them out. Simmons grabbed her wrists, his size making for strength and he twisted her body so that she was the one who was forced against the mirror, with him over her. "But sweeter, like… cherries."

His hand was at her neck. She forgot to breathe. There was sweat shining on her forehead. His fingers twisted around in her hair, knotting it painfully.

Bang! Simmons was flat on the interrogation table, Esposito's boot contacting with his backside. An indescribable anger blazed through the Hispanic detective's eyes as he slammed the handcuffs over Simmons' wrists.

Beckett slid to the floor, eyes closed, leaning against the cold, hard wall.

"Kate?" Castle offered, touching her shoulder gently. She screamed at the contact, pulling away from him and falling in to the corner of the room, striking it thoughtlessly as terror ran through her mind.

Ryan and Esposito had pulled a resistant Simmons off of the table and were dragging him towards the door. The latter cast Castle a look that was in similar vein to 'take care of our sister'. Castle nodded uncomfortably.

Simmons twisted a final time against the two male detectives and turned to look Beckett in the eyes. "Remember what he told you. It's still too impersonal for you to know."

His laughter ran through her mind painfully. It was evil. She had never used such a childish word to describe a criminal in her life but at that moment, she didn't think she could handle to do anything else. She felt like a child. Weak. Broken. Helpless.

"Kate!" Castle tried again, reaching for her and stilling her movements. Her breathing was quick – too quick – and her eyes were glazed over. Although her gaze was in his direction, he doubted she saw him.

He was right. She only saw, or rather, heard, _him._

_12:00 Sunday January 16th 2011 (two weeks ago)_

_Within the first ring she had picked up the phone. Having to have waited two months had been painful. Even harder, though, when she had to convince all those people that she worked with everyday that all was fine, when all she felt like doing was yelling, "What the hell has my life become?" as loud as she could to whoever would listen._

_She was in her car again. It reminded her of the third call. All of the calls were so perfectly ingrained in her memory from all the times she had replayed them in her head. She had almost convinced herself to record the call many times over, and yet, every time she found herself realising that she couldn't relive it. She couldn't listen to his voice again and again telling her what to do. But at the same time she had to. She had to hear what he was saying._

_"Beckett."_

_"How are you, Katie? Those cuts bothering you?" He gave a harsh, hollow laugh at her expense. She felt her fingers shaking. How did he know?_

_The 17th of December. The night of the day after he hadn't called. What if her never called again? She had grabbed that kitchen knife again and she had pulled it against her thigh and she had let it break the surface, leaving herself with a shallow but painful cut on her upper leg. Then she had dragged the tip across her shoulders letting it pierce her skin, and letting the blood trickle down her arms._

_She had done this from inside her bathroom, half dressed. Then she had fallen in to her bathtub, still dressed, letting the tendrils of blood float through the water. It was eerie. Letting herself 'inflict self-harm,' as it would be described in one of her own reports._

_That night she had almost done it. She had almost cut the vital artery of her wrist and had laid the knife over her neck. Letting it lie there. Comfortably. Then she had remembered her father. Ryan and Esposito. Lanie. Montgomery. Castle. Nausea claimed her and she picked up the knife, throwing it across the room, flinching as it bounced off the wall and clanged against the floor. Submerging herself under the water so she wouldn't have to hear the echoes of the knife clattering._

_How did he know?_

_"Why didn't you call last month?"_

_Another bark of laughter sounded. "Don't change the subject. How are the cuts feeling? Aren't you going to ask me 'how the hell' I know? You seem to enjoy using that phrase."_

_She felt sick. "Okay. Fine. How do you know?"_

_"You ought to know that I know everything about you by now. Everything. Tell me why you just let the knife lie against you neck. Weren't you afraid? Any sane person would be."_

_It was her turn to laugh, albeit bitterly. "You think I can be sane after all this? I don't know who the hell you are, but you call me, you threaten me, you demand that I do things that have no meaning, and you tell me that you know things about my mother. Well, it's been seven months. Tell me what I want to know."_

_"We shouldn't do this over the phone, Katie. We have to really get to know one another first. It's far too impersonal between us right now."_

_She was hardly handling this as it was. How was she supposed to deal with it if she saw him for real, heard his voice directly. How? It would kill her._

_"You haven't said a lot this week, Katie. That is perfectly fine by me. We'll have time for conversation later. I'll see you soon Katie. Less than a month. I promise."_

_The phone gave a long beep before she could say a word. Not that she was going to say anything. What could she say? It wasn't like she could refuse to do whatever he said._

_What other choice did she have?_

Slowly her eyes opened. The surface she rested upon was soft. A bed, she realised.

Taking in her surroundings, her acute sense of smell helped her pinpoint that she was in a hospital. The scent screamed _sterile!_ Her eyes, however, were blurry and she found herself unable to make out any details in terms of the room. Judging from the sound level, though, it was likely a public ward, unlike the last time she had been in the building.

"Hey." Castle's voice was easy to recognise. She could vaguely make out his figure, sitting close to her.

She made to sit up. Castle seemed to realise her intentions and offered an arm of assistance. She shook her head at him and pulled herself up. There was a moment of weakness where she felt as though she might fall back again, but it passed quickly.

"You had a panic attack. They had to sedate you," Castle said quietly, seeming to sense that she was sensitive to the loud sounds of their surroundings.

"I have to get back to the precinct, Castle," Beckett told him firmly, forcing herself to look in to his eyes as her vision cleared. His eyes carried hesitation. Amendment: his eyes were full of hesitation.

"Montgomery said that you shouldn't be back today."

Kate covered her face with her hands to collect herself briefly, before looking up at him again. "He seems to be saying that a lot lately."

"For good reason, Kate." Why couldn't Castle be his old, humorous self, just this once? She knew within herself that it was the one she knew now that she – goddamn it! – loved. And yet the old one would have done exactly as she had said, driving her back to the precinct to wrap up the case.

"Castle," Her voice was pleading, now. She wished it could have been stronger. Firmer. "I've gotta get back there."

His decision seemed to waver slightly.

_What else have you got? _She asked herself. She offered a small, sad smile.

"I'm driving though." Castle relented finally.

Her smile became the slightest bit less saddened. "No argument from me."

-CASTLE-

Castle expected her to go straight to Montgomery and demand that he let her back in on what had happened. At the very least go to Esposito and Ryan and force them to tell her what the Captain had said. She did neither.

As soon as they arrived at the precinct, she became silent. She didn't respond to a word he said all the while as the elevator rose to the homicide floor.

She strode a purposefully long route to the lock-up area so that she wouldn't see Esposito, Ryan or Montgomery. Then she walked straight to Simmons' cell.

He stood up and walked right up to the bars. "What's the matter, detective? Are you so afraid of a handcuffed criminal like me that you won't even join me on this side of the bars?"

Rage flickered through her eyes and she flicked her fingers around the bars, looking straight in at him. "Tell me who the hell it was that violated me."

"I don't appreciate being talked to like that, Detective Beckett. No doubt someone will come and remind you of that in future." A sneer hardened on his face.

"Tell me!" Beckett screamed in to his cell.

"I'd suggest you back off, or people you know are going to start turning up dead." Simmons turned around and started to pace in the small area he had to himself. He was taunting her as well, in his own way.

"Tell me!" Beckett yelled again, shaking the bars in a mixture of frustration and fury.

"Beckett," Castle warned. It was a real warning. She could lose her badge for talking to Simmons in this way without letting Montgomery know. God only knew what she would do if she did.

Kate rattled the bars a final time before turning on her heel and exiting the closed-off area for a corridor. As soon as she was out of Simmons' line of sight, she fell heavily against the wall, letting her head fall once again in to her hands.

"Damn, Castle. What the hell do I do now?"

Rick put his arms around her and let her fall against his chest, the tears streaming too rapidly from her face. Moving gently from side to side, he tried to calm her. "I don't know, Beckett. But you'll nail him. You always do."

A door to their right opened suddenly and the two pulled apart quickly. It was Montgomery.

"Beckett. I don't know what you're doing here, but right now I need a word with you." He saw her exchange a glance with Castle. "Alone."

Montgomery beckoned her to follow him. She did so hollow, drained of all motivation

When they were standing in his office, he shut the door firmly and turned to look at her. She looked drained as hell. He could swear that she looked thinner, and there was still a large cut against her neck that had yet to heal.

"Sit down, Kate." The way he said it made it an order. She complied. "Something… something bad has happened."

His tone was the same as the one that she used when speaking to the families of victims. _The families of victims. _Oh god. What was it that Simmons had said?

_"I'd suggest you back off, or people you know are going to start turning up dead."_  
No.

"Your father is missing, Beckett."

Kate choked back a cry of pain. Her father. But missing? Missing was better than dead, wasn't it? Or could it be worse? Would they make her choose between finding justice for her mother and helping her father? She would choose her living father in a heartbeat, but the decision would surely crush her for the rest of her life. What the hell did they want from her?

"Since when, sir?" She whispered, her voice hoarse.

Montgomery kneeled down beside her. "They found blood in his house. It was there for over twelve hours. He… he wouldn't have survived without medical attention."

Kate looked down in to her lap, numb.

Her mother was dead. Her father was dead.

Sucking in a breath, she looked at Montgomery, telling him with his eyes to give her a moment alone. He obliged, worry plain in his features.

"I'm sorry, Kate," He told her, honesty evident as he shut the door behind himself.

The minute he left the room she pulled her gun from her pocket and aimed it against her neck, resting her finger on the trigger calmly. What did she have left to live for?

Pulling in the trigger slowly, a movement within the room caught her eye. Taking another breath, she pulled the trigger further. Then, her eyes shot open in confusion.

Three seconds later, half the precinct heard a gunshot issuing from within Captain Montgomery's office.

**A/N: Is that a nice cliffhanger or a I-want-to-throw-things-at-this-horrid-author cliffhanger? I'm hoping it makes you want to read the next chapter, at least. Getting things thrown at you (figuratively or not) is, needless to say, unpleasant.**

**Does it sound conceited to be proud of a chapter? Cause I think that I am, kind of.**

**Quick question: Do you think the rating should change to M, because it's getting pretty dark? Maybe I should have changed it before, but I'm not really sure how I'm meant to do this (remember, this is my first fanfiction). I've seen stories for SVU that have quite a bit more graphic stuff in the T rating (although that does kind of make sense. I don't think that many under-13s watch that program)**

**Reviews are always appreciated. Always. Tell me what you think!**

'**Til next week.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Here's hoping that this is a good enough conclusion to the cliffhanger.**

_Bang! _Beckett twisted and ducked beneath the desk. Despite the intensity of the moment she could still pick up on the irony of the situation. Hardly a second ago she had been about to take her own life, and now she was avoiding bullets which would surely have served the same purpose.

The short glimpse she had caught of the person was of a dark-skinned hand on a gun. It was all but a reflex to fall to the ground. Drawing her own gun close to herself she aimed around the desk, firing twice in a similar direction. Glass shattered noisily.

"Drop the weapon, Katie!" The call came from within the room. It was _his _voice. Deep. Disconcerting. And yet, somehow, electrifying.

It took her a moment to realise the gravity of the situation. _He was in the room with her. _Her breath came in shallow gulps and she struggled to find the oxygen to keep herself upright.

By chance, she was facing Montgomery's transparent door, in to the rest of the precinct. She saw him there, sprinting towards the door, Castle directly behind him. Abruptly, though, the two of them stopped. Urgency shone through Castle's eyes and he started to thrust his arms in front of him as if beckoning something.

Before she could react an arm was around her neck. The Spider. There was something in his touch that was the same as that time in… when…

"Get up." His arm on her elbow pulled her in to standing. Her gaze fell solely upon his hand over her arm until she felt a pressure on the side of her neck. He had her at gunpoint.

Kate didn't know how to react. Should she struggle against him or remain still?

She could see Castle, an almost hysteria in his eyes which were fixed upon the gun at her neck. He seemed to be struggling with the decision of whether to move or stay still. He needn't have bothered with the consideration as Montgomery's kept a steady eye on him, the other on her.

_He _thrust Montgomery's door open, letting it crash against the wall on the other side.

"If any of you move, I put a bullet through her lovely neck. I'm not afraid to spill her blood." Tangling his fingers through her long hair, he pulled her head backwards, letting the pale flesh of her neck become all the more visible to all within the precinct.

"We are going to get on that elevator and when we get down to ground level you are not going to have anyone waiting for us. If you do, I will know, and Katie is dead," the last three words where whispered in to Kate's ear. She shuddered and tried to pull away from him, if only to glimpse his face, but he only pulled her closer, taking his hand off of her elbow and wrapping it around her waist.

_He killed my father. He violated me. He _will _kill me._

The world started to become blurred in front of her. Whether it was tears in her eyes or from the increasing interval between her breathing she wasn't certain. There was a _ping! _– the elevator, she realised. It sounded far away. And yet the doors slid open right before her.

"Kate!" She heard a desperate cry from behind her. Castle. She tried to twist against the grip that held her, but was held fast, his grip unrelenting as he forced her in to the small precinct elevator. Then he turned, turning her with him.

And there it was, written all over Castle's face. _I love you._

A loud jab of a button and the doors were sliding shut.

"Kate!" Castle started towards the elevator, sprinting for the doorway. The weapon was pulled closer around her neck and the novelist ran faster yet. _I love you._

Just before the doors closed in around her, she managed to force herself to whisper, "I know." The last look on his face displayed a torrent of conflicted emotions. Shock. Disbelief. Fear. More prominent than all of that though, an enduring, tormented love.

-CASTLE-

She was sharing with him a space smaller than 2m x 2m x 3m. He released her the moment the doors slid shut and she fell against the corner furthest from him, eyes squeezed firmly shut. He pulled himself over her though, lifting her arms against the wall and covering them with his and pressing his lips against her neck.

_Not again._

Forcing herself to open her eyes, she looked directly in to his. Her first thought was that it was Vulcan Simmons, but somehow it wasn't. His face was less rounded, jaw-line more prominent, eyes, if it were even possible, colder. He looked exactly like Simmons but somehow was not.

"I was bluffing, you know." He caressed her cheek as he spoke. Confusion shone through her eyes, and he pressed his lips against her bare skin again. "I would never have harmed you."

She bit her lip in an effort to not cry out his name in pain, physical and emotional. She didn't succeed.

"_Castle!"_

-CASTLE-

He sprinted down the stairs, ahead of the police officers behind him who were shouting out directions that he had no intention of obeying. His mind was fixated upon Kate. _I know, _she had whispered.

He was about to thrust open the door at the bottom of the stairwell when an arm grabbed him and pushed him to the side. Esposito. He held a loaded gun by his side.

"Stay behind us," he yelled to Castle as he turned the doorknob and pushed it quickly open. Ryan forced himself past Castle and covered Esposito's back. The both of them made their way quickly over to a corner of the room that was not visible from the elevator. The rest of the police team quickly dispersed themselves around the level, urging citizens from the building rapidly.

_Ping! _The elevator doors opened, revealing…

Nothing. No one was on board the elevator.

-CASTLE-

She hadn't realised they had been travelling upwards until they had reached the level two above homicide. Robbery.

He had forced her around the level, manoeuvring her by the wrist to avoid the people on the floor, until they reached his destination: the rusty metal stairwell on the outside of the building.

A gun thrust hard in to her back, she stumbled forwards down the stairs. She could make out his scent in the wind blowing from behind her.

A car was parked just beside the steps. The same dark blue car that he had driven when he had went to Josh's house. The same dark blue car in which he had driven her to the building that was now all but a place of nightmare.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could just make out several figures sprinting towards her. Esposito and Ryan were leading the group, she realised, as they became clearer.

_He _did not give them a chance to reach her, aiming his weapon towards them and firing several times. They dove to the ground to avoid the bullets.

She was concentrating so hard on willing the bullets not to hit her boys that she didn't realise when the man beside her raised his fist and brought it down sharply to strike her head.

Blackness engulfed her.

-CASTLE-

Her eyes flickered open slowly, to be greeted by a face looming over her. It took her a brief moment to realise what had happened. The unmistakable leer of his face was enough to trigger her memory further back than she would ever have wanted.

"Awake at last, Katie. You've kept me waiting." His voice was ice, but captivating in the same way it was over the phone. She couldn't stop listening, even though she wanted to more than anything.

"There's something that I need you to do for me." He muttered, seating himself beside her prone figure on the ground and stroking his fingers through her hair.

She twisted her head away from him and struggled to sit up, anything to increase the distance between him and her. "You know that I would rather die than do anything for you."

He laughed. She felt herself shivering, pulling her thin jacket closer around her skin. The way he laughed was too familiar.

"I know you would." He paused, touching her cheek. She twisted her head away and squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to breathe. "But would you let him die?"

Her eyes opened suddenly, filling with fear. She followed his gaze to a far corner of the room.

And there, lying on the floor like a discarded rag doll was the bloodstained figure of her father.

**A/N: I have quite a few things to say on this chapter.**

**1 – I actually completely changed the course of this chapter. Originally I was going to have something far more anticlimactic, but I felt like that wouldn't be a fitting reward for your patience (I know I should update more often, but I do find it hard to focus myself sometimes on writing this – I'm coming up with the plot as I go)**

**2 – I don't live in America and so I've probably made an error in terms of this. I know the 12****th**** has an elevator because they are always using it in Castle, but I don't know about the internal stairwell. The one Castle, Ryan and Esposito ran down was one that was inside. Beckett and the Spider took one that was outside. I've heard from someone who used to live in America that they have stairs on the outside of buildings (I think they also had one in 2x17 Boom!). I hope whatever is correct, that the mistakes are forgivable.**

**3 – In terms of the hostage situation, I'm almost certain that they would have some kind of protocol for that, but really, how would they handle it? Beckett is at gunpoint, and she isn't resisting so how do they get the Spider without him shooting a hole through her neck? Besides, I kind of needed him to get her, so it's good for my plot. I hope this is forgivable as well.**

**Okay. 13 chapters down the track and I feel like I should thank some of the people who have let me know what they thought of my story as I write.**

**runeaglerun – **Thank you. I'm not sure whether you're still reading this, but your reviews of the first few chapters were what made me not give up on this story.

**bpkb – **To borrow from Beckett, you are sweet.

ElphabeticBroadway – Yes, I was referring to them. I wasn't affected though. I'm in WA. I hope you and everyone you know is okay.

**MrsNCISbonesSUPERfan – **Your last review made me laugh out loud. I'm hoping your computer survived. And I hope you liked this chapter.

**Of course, I thank all of you for reviewing. I'm so thankful to have such literate readers who leave me such kind feedback. I'll try to get in to a habit of thanking some of you in each chapter cause it really is because of you that I keep writing.**

**Another update next week.**


	14. Chapter 14

"Sir, Simmons is gone." Esposito approached the whiteboard where Montgomery stood. Alongside him were Ryan and Castle staring furiously at their murder board. Most disconcerting was that there was a picture of his boss, Beckett, on the board. The words _THE_ _SPIDER _had been written at the top of the board, and Castle had been writing dot-points of information as they came to him.

Montgomery turned around the face him. "What the hell do you mean that Simmons is gone?"

"I mean exactly that, sir," Esposito shook his head in frustration. "I went to go talk to him about what he knew about Beckett and this… Spider… and he wasn't there. No one saw anything."

"Damn!" Montgomery slammed his fist against the wall and looked in to the blank eyes of the photo of Beckett. It was a photo taken less than a month ago and although she was smiling somewhat, her mind seemed to be elsewhere. Why hadn't she given any of them a sign that she needed them? Montgomery swore to himself that when he got her back they were going to have a long talk about what friends were for.

Little did he know that the exact same thoughts were passing through Ryan and Esposito's minds.

Castle stood close to the board and laid his fingers over the photo of Kate. _I know, _had been her whisper to him. _I know. I know. I know. _She knew that he loved her. Did she love him though? But he didn't even have to ask. It had been written all through her eyes as well as the elevator doors shut themselves around her stopping him from entering.

"Did any of you think that the guy that took Beckett looked a lot like Simmons?" Ryan spoke up hesitantly. He had been further away and hadn't gotten a very clear look of the man, but the first thing he had noticed were the man's eyes, which were similarly as cold as Simmons had been during his interrogation.

"Yeah. I kind of thought so too. What are you thinking, bro?" Esposito replied.

Castle's jaw clenched. He hadn't said a word since Kate had been taken right before their eyes. The other three could tell that the guilt was crushing him. He thought he should have been able to stop it.

Ryan noticed Castle's expression and seemed to choose his words with care. "We know it isn't Simmons, of course, because of his voice, but what if it had been someone close to him, maybe a relative. Say that he didn't come in alone, while we were focusing all our resources on trying to help Beckett, someone could have slipped by an got Simmons."

Montgomery was shaking his head. "No one would be able to get past our security system, get through the bars in lock-up and get someone as huge as him out without being noticed."

Ryan took a deep breath and looked up at Montgomery. "With all due respect, sir, a few hours ago I think you would have said that no one would have been able to break in to your office and get Beckett out of this building right in front of all of us."

Montgomery stared the younger detective down, but Ryan kept his gaze steady. Finally Montgomery looked away, nodding. "Beckett would have been proud of you for saying that."

The past tense floated around in the room, an ugly presence. Ryan's eyes watered slightly and Castle took a step towards him, bumping his shoulder as playfully as he could manage. "She _will _be proud of you when we tell her."

The other three couldn't mistake the breaking of the writer's voice as he spoke. Ryan smiled faintly knowing how hard this had hit him. "Thanks, man."

Castle gave a pained half-smile before continuing to jot down information on the whiteboard.

-CASTLE-

The Spider held up a photograph. "Kill him."

Kate fumbled in the darkness, trying to find some sign of life from her father. Breathing? A heartbeat? She couldn't tell at all. Her fingers felt numbed from the cold – he had stripped her of her coat, leaving her wearing but a thin black turtleneck – but she grasped his hands in her own and rubbed them gently to warm them as much as she could.

All too suddenly, his fingers were at her collar, pulling her up and away from her father and thrusting her to the ground hard. She held in a cry of pain as her bare hands collided with the coarse floor, scraping the skin away to leave raw, bleeding flesh.

He held up the photograph again to a light source that she couldn't pinpoint, not that she had tried. Recognising the man's face she recoiled slightly while trying to wipe some of the blood off her wounded hands.

"Do you understand me, Katie? This man is to be dead by your hand."

Kate coughed loudly, and pulled herself forwards, trying to reach her father again.

_Whack! _A hand slapped the side of her face hard and she fell back to the ground feeling the blood trickling around in her mouth. "Do you understand?" His fingers were at her collar, keeping her up. She twisted weakly, trying the pull free, but his grasp was solid.

"Do you _understand?" _He yelled at her, shaking her upper body sharply. She coughed again, more painfully, as she felt blood well up within her mouth. Looking him in the eye, she spat directly in to his face.

Abruptly, he released her, letting her fall back to the ground. The pain was nothing new. In fact, the physical pain was almost gratifying, letting her feel, dare she say it, _free, _from all those problems swirling around in her mind. It let her experience something gritty and real, and for that she was thankful.

The light source shifted. _How? _Her mind asked, but she shoved the question aside. There was a knife being held to her father's neck. A thin trickle of blood was barely visible as it beaded down his neck.

"Yes." She whispered in surrender. "Yes. I understand."

The Spider let go of her father, and he fell heavily against the wall. A small groan escaped his lips.

"Dad?" Kate called, trying to keep her voice even. "Dad!"

Jim Beckett stirred slowly. A chuckle sounded from the other side of the room. "Shall I leave you two to your touching family reunion?" Footsteps sounded and Kate sensed that he had retreated.  
"Dad? Are you okay?" Kate forced herself to move forwards despite various limbs screaming in protest.

There was another weak groan. "Katie?"

"Yeah, Dad. It's me. Listen to me, are you okay?"

Her father shuddered in cold, and Kate again wrapped her fingers around his, providing the little warmth that she could. "I'm okay. Where are we?"

Tears trickled down her face. Her father smiled faintly at her. "I don't know. Dad, I'm so sorry. I didn't know what would happen and…"  
"Shh…"

Kate felt more tears leaking from her eyes. Her father lifted one of his shaking fingers from her grasp and touched her cheek lightly.

"You look more like your mother every day, Katie." Heaving a deep breath, Jim closed his eyes.

"No. _NO! _Dad, you have to stay awake." Kate screamed at him. His eyes didn't open. "No! Please, Dad!" The hysteria started to overwhelm her, and sobs began to rack through her.

_February 1996_

_Kate Beckett had cried for almost the whole afternoon. She could hear her father's drunken rage from within her room. Everyone had noticed that she was different. Of course, there was the fact that her mother had died, been murdered, but after a while her poker face had become so perfected that no one ever asked about it any longer. Alcoholism, though, was one thing that she had next to no experience with._

"_Katie! Good girl. Get me my bottles," came the slurred voice from the living area. Their television had been trashed a few nights before and after her father had passed out, blind drunk, she had picked up the pieces. The other girls at school would have thought it stupid of her, but she had kept every piece, and she had stayed up till past eleven every evening since it had broken, gluing the fragments together._

_It was a fruitless exercise. If she were being generous, she could say that it was to preserve all those memories she had shared with her mother watching various TV programs. Temptation Lane, she heard her mom whispering in her mind. But she was not feeling particularly generous. In fact, she was feeling quite cross with her father, with school – all those stupid teachers who thought they knew anything and everything, with life. She was fed up with it all. So she knew that the reason she had spent those nights gluing shards of broken glass together and cutting her fingers several times in the process, was so she would have something o do._

"_Katie! Bottles…" There was a crash, and she heard something crack on the floor. His head, maybe? Turned out to be a bottle. She shut all the drawers and the next day she brought home her lock from her school locker. There was nothing in there that she cared about, nor anything that someone would bother taking._

_It didn't matter. She was never going to forgive her father for this._

"I think that's enough time for the family to reconnect," Came the icy tone from behind her.

_Please don't touch him. Kill me._

"Do you understand what you have to do?" The Spider asked her, pulling her up and forcing her away from her unmoving father.

"Please don't touch him. You can kill me." She begged, not resisting him. For what did it matter if she died? _Castle. _Her mind whispered softly. She had admitted to loving him. What kind of a stupid move had that been on her part? He was like her though. He wouldn't give up. He wouldn't back down. Somehow that thought made her feel better, if only slightly.

"Now where's the fun in that, Katie? You are the one we all want."

He let her go and dropped her to the ground, pinning her between his legs. What a beautiful specimen she was! Stunning, even so close to death as she would be.

Lifting her neck, he prised her jaw open and forced himself inside of her…

It took the fun out of it for him that almost a minute later she had passed out in a combination of shock and fear. An eternal pity, for it was seeing them scream and writhe that was his greatest pleasure.

_No matter, _he told himself. Gently untangling himself from her limbs, he retrieved her service weapon, which he had taken the care to touch only with gloved fingers. Laying that on the wooden table beside them, he grabbed several bullets and rubbed them beneath her fingers. Then, extracting a small inkpad, he took an impression of each of her fingers.

Halfway through the procedure her eyes opened wide in pure terror. He gave her a smile – a mocking smile, before from his pockets pulling a syringe and plunging it within her emaciated arm. Her eyes glassed over before again sliding closed.

Shoving all of the objects to the side, he slid his body again over hers.

-CASTLE-

"Hello, is this Detective Esposito?" The caller inquired. Male, sounded… Asian if he were to hazard a guess.

"Yeah. Who's this?"

"I'm Detective Chang, I'm with the 10th. We picked up your guy, Vulcan Simmons."

"One moment. Ryan!" Esposito beckoned his partner over beside him. "They got Simmons."

Ryan nodded in acknowledgement, hurrying to share the news with Montgomery and Castle.

"Have you got him in the box?" Esposito asked quickly. "Can we get over there and question him?"

There was what felt like a long pause on the other end of the line. "He's dead. Murdered. We found a woman standing over him with a gun, blood all over her, hasn't said a word. Chances are, she's our killer. We need you here, she won't lower the weapon."

"We're on our way." Esposito jotted down the address that Chang gave him and Ryan and Castle followed him out the door. Montgomery had been told by the higher powers, whoever they might be, to remain in the precinct in case the press decided to drop by.

Upon arriving, Castle found it hard to hear himself think. There were sirens blazing everywhere. And there, within the midst of it all, was a thin, bloody-clothed woman, aiming a gun directly towards the mixture of uniformed officers.

Castle felt his heart stop when he saw the woman's face.

Beckett.

She swivelled around a bit to face the three of them who had just arrived and aimed her gun directly at him.

**A/N: Any good? That's quite a long chapter for you. Maybe a bit quick in getting through all of the stuff, but hopefully it's to your liking.**

**I realised I made a mistake in my last A/N. I said Boom! was 2x17. I meant 2x18, but I got confused with Countdown being the second of the two-parter and being 3x17.**

**Reviews are what I live for. Please leave one if you can. Thank you:**

**fluteskickbrass – **your reviews make me laugh quite a bit too. I'm glad your liking it. As for the laws… what fun would this be without those cliffhangers?

**Persephone SylviaMoon** – always nice to be loved.

**Oh, and thank you for those people who left some info about the stair stuff. It's always nice to learn new things.**

**See you next week.**


	15. Chapter 15

Castle felt his heart stop when he saw the woman's face.

Beckett.

She swivelled around a bit to face the three of them who had just arrived and aimed her gun directly at him.

-CASTLE-

There was nothing in her eyes. No glimmer of recognition, no nothing. Just her. Pointing her gun at him.

"Beckett!" Esposito said slowly but commandingly. Detective Chang gave him an odd look, presumably because he knew her. "Drop the gun, now!"

Oh god. She was so covered in blood. Castle prayed that none of it was hers. If it was… how could he not have stopped her from being taken? And what was she wearing? That flimsy material of her shirt could hardly protect her from the blistering cold he still felt under his two coats.

"Beckett?" Castle tried, only succeeding in making her finger press in on the trigger ever so slightly more. There was something else in her eyes though – something that had the potential to become hesitation long enough to disarm her.

He tried to take a step forward but Ryan stopped him from getting close. There was terror clearly evident in his eyes at their situation. Castle tried to think of what Beckett would say to him at a time like this. _Don't move! Let the real cops deal with it or you're gonna get someone shot. _He drew in a sharp breath upon realising that none of them were wearing vests.

His attention was quickly brought back to her as she took a ragged breath, and her arms on her weapon sagged heavily downward, before she managed to pull them up darting her arms about to aim at various policeman before coming to rest upon Castle. She stared in to him hard.

"Kate, put it down," Castle ignored the Ryan's restraining arm and Esposito's _stay the hell back _look and walked towards her slowly, arms raised. Her arms started to shake violently and her eyes widened in fear as he stepped closer. "It's okay Kate, just put down the gun."

He could have sworn that she was about to pull the trigger when she let the gun fall from her hands, clattering loudly to the ground. She looked about ready to follow that trajectory when Castle reached her, and she fell in to his warm arms with a shiver.

"Oh, Castle," she murmured in to his ear. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know… what am I…"  
"Hey. It's okay." He silenced her softly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I'm the one who should be sorry." Taking off his coat, he wrapped it around her, and she let the warmth, small comfort that it was, seep through her bones.

There was a loud noise behind him and quickly letting Beckett go he saw that Chang had picked up her discarded weapon. Then he heard the Asian detective whisper something to Esposito receiving a hard look in return with his reply. Then Esposito shot an apologetic look in Beckett's direction. She had her eyes shut and seemed to be mouthing some words to herself as if to muster her resolve.

Esposito approached her with handcuffs in hand, and her eyes opened as she heard the jangling of the chains connecting them. She tried to step back, to get further away from him, only succeeding in colliding with another officer standing beside who gave her a reproachful glare and grabbed her arm so that Esposito could pull the cuffs over her wrist.

"Kate Beckett, you are under arrest for the murder of Vulcan Simmons. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

**A/N: This just came to me. I shouldn't be writing in the middle of the week when I should be writing an English essay, but really, who's going to know? Except for you, of course. And you wouldn't tell my English teacher, would you? It kinda feels a bit like A Deadly Affair with role-reversal.**

'**Til Saturday. That chapter might be a little shorter than usual, but when combined with this it should be an okay length.**

**Review? See! They do make me write faster! Is this mini-chapter any good or should I stick with the usual longer weekly updates?**


	16. Chapter 16

Through the glass Castle could make out her blank expression as she studied her hands. The medics from had bandaged them and they had cleaned most of the blood off of her, some of it being from Simmons, some of it from her. He longed to walk in to the interrogation room and throw his arms around her, assuring her that she would be safe forevermore with him, but it wasn't something that he could promise her any longer. It had frightened the hell out of him when she had turned her gun on him, and he doubted he would ever forget her eyes trained on him but not recognising him…The Spider, whoever he was, had done something to her mind.

It all came back to the Spider.

Similar thoughts were running through the minds of Esposito, Ryan and Montgomery. That, somehow, they should have protected their sister, their daughter. What could they have done, though? They had a perpetrator who had evaded their every move, taken Beckett _twice _and had, somehow, set her up for murdering Vulcan Simmons. That _had _to be the only explanation. If only they had something more concrete than, 'somehow.'

Castle's eyes were suddenly drawn back to Beckett. The long scar along her neck from when she had first been taken was still faintly visible against her skin and she traced her fingers along the mark slowly, her eyes squeezing shut as if in pain.

"Let me talk to her," he tried, addressing Montgomery.

"Not a chance in hell, Castle. I hear you finally kissed our girl at our crime scene. Any other time, and I would be congratulating you on finally getting there, but as it is, I can't have you talking to her. Those two will handle this," The Captain indicated Ryan and Esposito with a tilt of his neck.

Reassuringly, Esposito started to speak, "Don't worry about it. We all know she didn't kill him, and her record's clean. All we need is to hear it from her."

"Yeah. Just give us a few minutes, it'll be over in no time," Ryan continued with an awkward smile as he opened the door to the interrogation room, entering it with Esposito.

A few minutes from then it all started to go horribly wrong.

-CASTLE-

"Esposito? Ryan? I thought you wouldn't be able to take this case. What are you doing here?" Beckett said as soon as she saw the two of them. She knew the fear was evident in her voice, and she rubbed her eyes with her hands to try to compose herself and looked towards the corner of the room, all too aware of the fact that her Captain and likely Castle were both behind what was supposedly a mirror. How was she supposed to do this? She had convinced herself that it would be a detective she wouldn't know interrogating her, and she would able to say everything as she had planned it without feeling a sense of… treachery. When Esposito had slapped those cuffs on to her wrist like she was any other criminal, the feeling of betrayal had made the bile rise in her throat. What she had done though… it was worse. By an undefinably large margin, it was worse.

Both Ryan and Esposito kept their faces devoid of emotion. "You've been informed of your rights, Detective Beckett."

She gave a minimal nod as her eyes darted around the room. Licking her lips to try to moisten them, she muttered, "Yes," under her breath.

"And you've declined to have an attorney present?"

Another slight nod, accompanied with a shiver.

"You are also aware that we are trying to locate the person that kidnapped you from this precinct yesterday, who has identified himself to you as the Spider. Correct?" Ryan asked, his voice not completely even as he took in his boss, who was hardly looking at him.

Esposito leaned over to him, "Ryan, let me handle this."

The younger detective looked somewhat alarmed at being asked to leave, but nonetheless obliged, eyeing Esposito questioningly. When the door shut behind him, Kate felt a few tears leak from her eyes, sliding down her cheek to drop on to the hard white table.

"Beckett, what can you tell me about the man who kidnapped you?" He kept his voice gentle, but there was an underlying seriousness to what he asked, and although more than anything, she wanted to scream for him to shoot a bullet right through her chest, she swore to herself that she would keep her voice steady while answering.

"He was black, like I told you before. I can't tell you much else. He was taller than me. There was something about him that reminded me of… of Vulcan Simmons. I don't know though. He looked… less well off than Simmons, like he had to fight. I don't know. I just don't know." So much for keeping her voice steady.

Esposito nodded encouragingly. "Okay. That's good. Do you remember where you were? Where did he take you? What did he do?"

Remember? Of course she remembered. What could she tell Esposito about it? Nothing.

"_If anything other than exactly what I have told you to do happens, your father is dead. Just like your mother."_

"Beckett?"

"No. I can't remember… anything." It almost sounded like a lie, but hopefully the pause made it more convincing. She lowered her head in to her hands and tried to suck in a deep breath unsuccessfully, making herself cough hard.

She saw Esposito shoot a look at the mirror. "All right. What is the last thing you remember?"

"The last thing I remember?" She asked him biting her lip, and he gave a firm nod in response. "I woke up on a street corner and I was cold. When I tried to stand I saw Vulcan Simmons. He had a gun and I had a gun and…"

She screwed her eyes shut and tried to hide her tears from Esposito, standing up and walking in to the corner of the room where two walls met. "Sit down," he ordered her. Who could blame him? As much as she wanted to keep her grief to herself, she surely would have done the same thing in his place. Running her sleeve across her eyes, she returned to the seat keeping her eyes downcast.

"And what?"

Was he going to make her say it out loud? It was hard enough as it was.

She murmured the next words so softly that Esposito had to lean towards her to hear them. "And I shot him."

-CASTLE-

"What? That's not possible. How could she have killed Simmons?" Castle asked Montgomery, his mind spinning with possibilities. "She _can't _have killed him. Beckett just wouldn't murder someone."

The Captain looked as shocked as the rest of them. "It's a confession, Castle. It's out of our hands."

Ryan sided with Castle, his voice loud and penetrating. "Captain, you know it couldn't have been her. Like Castle said, Beckett just… _wouldn't _kill someone in cold blood. She couldn't."

Montgomery wasn't listening to him, keeping his focus on the other side of the glass.

-CASTLE-

"Beckett, for the record, you just… confessed to murder." Esposito said the response automatically as one he had developed over years of questioning.

She shook her head sadly, shifting her gaze to look down at her hands again. "Don't think I don't know that, Javi."

Reaching out, he took her hands, forcing her to look in to his eyes. There was nothing in them but compassion, friendship and what was almost protectiveness. "Why, Kate? Why confess? Did this Spider tell you he'd do something if you didn't?"

Only that he would kill her father. And she couldn't explain that without her father getting killed in the process, so she kept her mouth shut until Esposito had no choice but to get up and leave, his eyes now displaying the full extent of that betrayal she had been so afraid to inflict upon him.

"Javi?" She called out hoarsely, almost against her will.

He paused at the door, just before twisting the knob.

"Did it ever cross you mind, that maybe I did it?"

Esposito let his hand fall from the door and turned to face her, "Are you being serious?"

She felt her eyes widening in alarm as she realised what she had done. "I've said too much." She whispered to herself, mortified.

Esposito exited the room then, the door slamming shut loudly behind him, leaving her in isolation.

-CASTLE-

"I've got something," Lanie called from the elevator as she walked towards the group huddled around the whiteboard.

"Why didn't you call us?" Ryan asked her absently, it hardly mattered.

"All your cells were off. Anyway, what I got, it's not good."

Esposito looked at her, "Not good, as in incriminating evidence against Beckett?"

The M.E. nodded solemnly. "I've got her prints on the murder weapon, even the bullets. In terms of the forensics, she did it."

Castle leaned over Beckett's table and pushed a coffee mug on it to the floor, listening to it shatter loudly. Lanie grabbed his arm. "Hey, it's okay. We all know she didn't do this and we'll figure a way to prove it. Got that, writer boy?"

She received a nod, but Castle's jaw was still tightly clenched. "Excuse me," he whispered to the group of them, making his way to the interrogation room in which Beckett sat.

As he watched her mannerisms, he found himself doubting everything. The way she sat indicated uneasiness, but also seemed to connote guilt of a sort from the way she held up her shoulders. All the while after the interrogation till now the tears hadn't stopped falling down her face. She was going to get dehydrated soon from losing all those fluids. And her hands… she kept looking down at them. That careful, blank mask had fallen when she had been left alone, and Castle could see what looked traces of disbelief and could it be dread? seeping through the cracks.

Cursing his vivid writer's imagination and skill for conjuring all sorts of scenarios – situations and motives – Castle found himself considering for the first time whether, in fact, Beckett could be a murderer.

**A/N: Ok, that's a lot of internal chatter from the characters. I'll leave you to think about whether Beckett's guilty or innocent. I know it's not a cliffhanger this week, but hopefully it's morally engaging (even if it's fiction) and makes you wonder, as Castle will be, about whether Beckett could indeed be a murderer.**

**Another note, I know there wasn't a lot of Castle himself in this chapter, but it felt right with Esposito interrogating her.**

**Okay, I just wanted to thank:**

**MHoles **– Thank you for your consistently thoughtful reviews**.**

**Will be back next week with a verdict for Beckett.**


	17. Chapter 17

**So sorry for the late update, last week when I published a chapter it didn't come up for about a day and I was worried a similar thing would happen so I posted the next chapter of my other story first to see what happened and it worked, so hopefully this one is okay too.**

**An extra disclaimer that is kind of obvious as you read because I could never come up with lyrics that perfect. The song isn't mine. It's called Quiet Times and the artist and writer is Dido. It felt right for Kate and the lyrics seem to work for what I think she would be thinking. If you can be bothered, have a listen to the song as you read.**

Leaning back against the bars of the unforgiving cell, she tried to wipe away the sweat that covered her body. It was so goddamned hot! The dryness of the air seared her throat as she breathed.

_Her father. _She was doing this for him. He was in a building god only knew where right now, bleeding to death. Kate had to convince the Spider that she was going to go down for this crime. She had to – her father was the only family she had left.

Her wrist felt exposed without the familiar band of metal around her wrist that was usually wrapped around it during all hours of daylight. Ryan had unhappily been forced to pull it from her wrist as she cried out in fear for losing the only possession of his that she owned. And for the fear of losing her father in the flesh also.

But hell, it was so hot. Pulling her shirt over her head, she stood in her cell wearing only her singlet that was damp with sweat.

There was something crawling over her. Hastily brushing her hands over her shoulders she pushed the strands of hair out of the way. Her hands pulled away in horror, for what to the rest of the world were harmless long chestnut hairs to her were spider crawling over her body.

-CASTLE-

"Could there be some sort of mistake?" Esposito begged his not-so-casual lover.

Lanie shook her head. "If we get pulled to court, no one could refute her fingerprints on the gun or the bullet. She was found virtually seconds later holding that gun over Simmons' body. There aren't many stories that will account for all of those factors that point to her innocence."

"Dammit! Are you trying to help her get out of that cell or not?" Castle snapped at her aggressively. Seeing Beckett getting pulled in to lock-up like a common criminal had taken a lot out of him.

"She's doing all she can," Esposito replied in Lanie's defence. The rest of them were just as upset about the situation as he was, it was no excuse for him to be abrupt at them.

Lanie looked about to say something and Ryan exchanged an edgy glance with Esposito when a uniformed officer walked up to the murder board.

"I think you had better come round to lock-up. Something's wrong with Detective Beckett."

None of them need to be told twice, hurriedly making their way to her cell when she was sitting on the floor her hair stuck to her neck with sweat. Her eyes were dazed, unfocused, and her arms were bare and shaking.

"Kate?"

"Why's it so hot in here?" She breathed, shaking off his arm on her shoulder as if to dispel any heat.

"It's 60 degrees outside. How can you be hot?"

Despite her mumbled protests, Lanie put her hand to the detective's forehead. "She's feverish. I think there's some sort of drug in her system. Can you call the paramedics, Javi?"

"On it."

-CASTLE-

"There was a very high percentage of the drug in her system. We've managed to bring her temperature down for now, but we need to get her to the hospital."

"What would the effects of the drug be?"

"Nausea, headaches, dizziness, loss of appetite, perhaps even hallucinations."

"Would it impair her judgement at all?"

"Obviously many drugs have that effect, so yes, it is likely. Like I said, though, we need to begin treatment soon. Right now she may be stable, but that could change at any moment."

"All right. Got it."

-CASTLE-

**Don't make a sound. This place is probably bugged. **Kate shoved the note in to Castle and Esposito's faces as they returned, and Ryan nodded vigorously. Castle stared at Kate for a moment, she was still pale and very slightly shaking, but she had pulled back on her shirt and her eyes were clear and alert.

He pulled the pen from her fingers. **Say something to throw him off – just in case.**

Kate looked puzzled for a brief moment, but then started to sing quietly – her mother's favourite song and one which she now could fully appreciate in all it's meaning – in tune but out of breath, looking at Castle in between her pauses of writing.

"_You ask me where I'd go tonight, I'd go back to today last year_

_When we knew how to make each other happy and there was hope of anything_

_It's hard enough to feel the world as it is and hold on anything_

_Without these quiet times, you've bought round here."_

**He always knew what I was doing. I don't think he could have gotten cameras in here, but it wouldn't be impossible for him to have gotten a listening device in here. **It was a messy scrawl, unlike her perfect lettering on the murder board. Castle was so focused on what she was writing that he didn't concentrate on what she was singing to him. After all, it _had _to be a ruse. He didn't see the tears that Kate blinked back as she continued to sing.

"_I'm going to have to run away, I'm sure that I belong some other place_

_I've seen another side of all I've seen it keeps me wondering where my family is_

_It's hard enough to see the world as it is and hold on anything_

_Without these quiet times, coming round here."_

For a long while, she simply sang the words, and Castle listened to her this time. Her voice was as smooth and soft as the waters of his imagination. Her words, though, as she sang them, her expression became pained. It was all he could do not to pull her in to his arms yet again.

At long last, though, she put the pen back to paper. The handwriting was even harder to read than the previous line on the page. **He has my father. He threatened to kill him if I don't go down for this crime.**

Esposito, this time, yanked the pen from her fingers. The popular cliché of deafening silence came to Castle's mind and he raised his eyebrows at Beckett, in an indication that she keep on singing. She looked away this time, adamant that he not realise the words perfectly describe how she felt about him.

"_And I miss you, and I want you_

_But I can't have you, even when you're here."_

**Did you kill him?**

There was another hesitation from Beckett as she nodded in response; closing her eyes so she wouldn't see the betrayal she had just caused them. She didn't see their eyes, filled with sorrow for her at having to kill to save the life of her father. Each knew how much her one remaining family member meant to her.

"_I suppose I have to take you with me broken mind I'd rather leave you here_

_To forget everything you've seen and known, erase every idea_

_And if you walk up in the street and hold my hand and smile_

_Well I won't be taken in, cos I know how it turns out _

_And it takes me back to these quiet times, coming round here."_

**I didn't have a choice; he held a knife to my father's neck. What I meant to tell you from the beginning, though, is that he's going to come here. I can't explain how I know, but after all the times he's been in my head, I can finally get in to his and I know that he will come.**

Ryan nodded, while Castle frowned at both the lyrics of the bittersweet song she sang and what she had written. She had been injected with drugs and her father had been threatened, so she should in no way feel responsible. She was already writing again.

**I need you boys to stay, switch with the guards here. And also, I heard that medic say that he wanted to take me to the hospital. No matter how bad it gets, you can't do that. He **_**has **_**to think that I'm an easy target or he won't come.**

All three men had started to shake their heads hard as they saw what she had written. No way. No way in hell.

**You **_**have **_**to do that. This is the best and only chance we've had so far to get him. Take advantage of that. Otherwise he really will kill me.**

Castle flinched at the words she had written. It had crossed his mind more than once, but that she was so acutely aware of it and how close she had come to death every time the Spider had taken her was unnerving.

"_And I miss you, and I want you_

_You're not coming back_

_And I need you_

_But I can't have you, even when you're here."_

**Go. **She wrote, but as each of the three men reluctantly stepped away, she grabbed Esposito's arm. **Castle can't be here when the Spider comes.**

Esposito didn't ask for an explanation because he knew her well enough to know that the look in her eyes at the present moment was her look of absolute certainty. He had never had any reason to doubt her certainty, in fact, he trusted hers more than his own.

Nodding, he put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her in to a brotherly hug. If anyone deserved peace or happiness or _closure _from life it was her.

-CASTLE-

From what he had heard, it would be an easy job getting to her and making sure she wouldn't snap at the last moment. He did have a precious bargaining chip, after all. Precious to her anyway.

She was smart, though, and smart girls were dangerous. Most of the women he'd enjoyed were brainless bombshells, but Katie was different. She would place the chains around his wrists while he was sleeping and lead him on a wild goose chase so his chains would get caught on objects all through the garden, leaving zig-zags throughout it to trip him up.

It wouldn't be enough to stop him, sure, but it was enough to give him a bloody nose. She had forgotten, though, that the chains could trip her up as well.

-CASTLE-

Kate alone was a single point of stillness and isolation in the bustle of silent activity happening around her. Not even ten minutes ago, Esposito had passed her an object through the bars without a word. It was her father's watch.

From behind him, Castle looked at her, so much visible through his eyes. All that he wanted to say and express that he couldn't. Not now, anyway.

Beckoning him forward, she took a breath and started to sing softly, as if to herself. He inched forwards as far as the bars separating them would allow to hear her words.

"_And I miss you, and I want you_

_You're not coming back_

_And I need you_

_But I can't have you, even when you're here."_

Castle's eyes suddenly widened in understanding. She nodded quickly and put a finger to her lips to keep him quiet. He reached through the bars offering his hand to grasp, but she walked backwards, a single tear slipping down her face.

Not tonight.

"Go home, bro," Esposito said to Castle, not unsympathetically. He could see that Kate was about to snap with all the emotions she had been suppressing and she couldn't afford to do that in front of Castle.

**A/N: Ok, so the chapter? I'm neutral on this one. I don't dislike it, but I don't think I completely like it. Let me know what you guys think. Particularly with the song, it's not like I'm going to turn this in to a song-fic, it's just nice to know what you think of certain aspects of the story.**

**Also, I realise I haven't given a very clear 'verdict' for Beckett, I mean, you can assume innocence, but I might revisit that plot point later… Do you agree though? She pulled the trigger, so is she innocent?**

**Thanks for reading,**

**kestraTroi7.**


	18. Chapter 18

**I'm so sorry this chapter is late. Internet troubles.**

When he got home he was careful not to make any noise. His family was everything to him but he didn't think he could bear to answer the numerous questions Alexis was sure to ask him. And his mother… she was perceptive, he'd give her that.

No such luck, though. The minute he twisted the keys in the lock, he heard a rush of footsteps and the door swung open. A flash of red hair and there were arms around his neck.

"Hey, Alexis. Why so – "

"You're an hour late. Where were you? We were getting so worried. I almost called the precinct."

Martha shut the door with a sigh. "I told her that you and Beckett had probably snuck off somewhere together," She raised her eyebrows meaningfully, "But Alexis insisted that you would have called to keep us apprised. Personally I'd rather not – "

Abruptly, Castle walked over to the kitchen and started preparing himself a cup of coffee. "Dad? What's wrong?"

_Everything. _"Nothing we can't handle. Just a case that got a bit personal for Beckett."

Alexis stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around him again. Martha sighed. "That poor girl. What on earth happened for you to be looking so glum?"  
He hadn't told his family anything about the Spider. They knew she'd been hurt before, but he had made sure they knew as little as possible about what happened. They thought it'd just been a routine bust and she'd gotten shot. Kate had told him not to.

"_Castle, try to keep your family out of this. Don't tell them what's going on."_

"_Why not?"_

"_It's just the way that he works. He gets inside my head and knows he can get to me through people I'm close to that know. Just don't make your family part of this."_

Silence wasn't something his family was accustomed to from him. "Dad?" Alexis said questioningly, taking a step back to look at him. He didn't react; just kept looking down at the coffee he had fixed himself. Stirring it absently the expression on his face was what Alexis would label as longing. Longing for _coffee? _Odd – even for her father.

He too would admit it was odd if it were longing for the mere coffee. No, it wasn't the coffee. It was _her _he longed for_. _Here he sat, with his coffee. It didn't feel right to be sitting here by himself, or even with Alexis and his mother, with a cup. It was a beverage he shared with Kate exclusively. Trying to sort through his scrambled thoughts, he realised he couldn't even remember the last time they'd shared the drink. Hell, he couldn't even remember the last time they'd shared the morning together uninterrupted.

He got up and grabbed his keys from the bench and dashed back out the door.

-CASTLE-

Kate had been crying to herself since the moment Castle stepped out of her view and it broke Esposito's heart to see her like that. So broken so as to not even care who saw her like that. Her pride had been stripped callously away from her one too many times for her to care anymore.

She had been mumbling incoherently to herself and singing that same phrase of the song from before over and over. From her quick glances and nods to Ryan, it was apparent that she was trying to make him think that it was just part of her ruse with throwing off a possibly listening Spider. Esposito wasn't so sure. And judging from the fact that she was avoiding each and every one of his looks, she wasn't even trying to make him believe it either. They had known each other too long.

Within himself he felt so much rage at this Spider's actions. Pure, unfiltered hatred at how he had hurt Kate. How he had forced her – _sexually _assaulted her, how he had coerced her in to doing what he saw fit. How he had called her once a month, taunting her, throwing her so close to the edge that she could hardly recall being on steady ground anymore. That son of a bitch was going to get one hell of a nasty surprise tonight.

"And I miss you, and I want you," came a choked cry from the cell. They had painstakingly moved the other prisoners from the block under one pretence or another till the only one that remained there was the only one that didn't belong there. And there she was leaning against the wall, half-killing herself and refusing any treatment all because of this Spider.

_To hell with the rules, _he thought, bending down right beside her and feeding his arm through the bars, touching her shivering skin. Her body temperature had been fluctuating between hot and cold too quickly for him to be able to do anything. Right now she was cold to the touch. "Kate, talk to me."

Eyes wide in fear, she shook her head at him vigorously. "You're not coming back," she sung quietly, her voice quivering and breaking.

"Hey, it's okay, Kate. It's okay," He tried to reassure her and at last she relented. Pulling herself along the floor, she was close enough for him to be able to fit his arms around her shaking shoulders, try to calm them. "Shh." He stroked her hair, and gradually, slowly, her fingers stopped trembling and she lay still against the bars.

Turning her head briefly to glance at him, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears as she nodded her thanks to him. Laying a hand against her cheek, he nodded back, a gentle gesture, but with it came a thousand memories, a thousand thanks for times when their roles had been reversed.

A pull on his arm alerted him to the rest of the world. It was Ryan. Kate lowered her gaze, "And I need you," she half-whispered, half-sung in to his jacket, grabbing it fleetingly, tightly as a child might grasp their favourite blanket, before releasing him and turning around again, letting him see only the back of her head – long matted hair and a thin, shivering frame.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Ryan started to speak, "What the hell were you thinking, bro? You could get her killed if you talk to her."

"What the hell was I supposed to do? She was crying. Beckett doesn't do that."

Ryan took a step away from him. "She was crying?"

"Yeah. Crying." Sighing, he walked closer to his partner. "Look, I reckon that if I were listening it'd be strange if I didn't hear her friends trying to talk to her. She's over-thinking all of this. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame her after all that's happened, but we just need to act the way we would if we didn't know any better."

He was interrupted by the _ping _of the elevator. Castle stepped off it, carrying something in his left hand.

"Castle. What're you doing here?" Esposito could hear that his tone was harsher than what he'd intended, but he couldn't help himself.

The writer lifted his arm and smiled, trying to diffuse the tension. "I brought a cup of coffee, I thought…" His eyes filled with sadness. "Could I give it to her?"

Esposito looked worriedly at Ryan, who replied for the both of them. "I'm not sure she could handle that."

"Ok," Castle responded, like he had been ready for what Ryan and Esposito would say. Ryan's eyes softened at Castle's obvious unease. Esposito exhaled deeply in exasperation.

"I'll give it to her, Castle," He promised, "But you can't stay." The man deserved more, but in all honesty, if Kate saw Castle now she would shatter, and no amount of comfort would be enough to piece her back together.

"Thanks," His tone was resigned again, if not the slightest bit more hopeful as he strode back to the elevator and the doors closed around him.

Esposito grabbed a pen and scribbled something down on the napkin before heading back to the lock-up area, leaving Ryan in his wake. Kneeling down again beside Kate, he saw that she was curled up, trying to contain all her body heat. She must still be cold.

Nudging her with his elbow, she sat up, and he offered the cup, which she grabbed both eagerly and gratefully, clinging on to its warmth, taking a quick sip. Esposito beckoned to the napkin and she saw what had been written on it: **from Castle.**

"But I can't have you, even when you're here," She sung the final lines of the song with a blank look on her face, unsure. The suddenly her face flashed with anger and fury and she threw the coffee on to the ground and let it spill, standing up suddenly to avoid the stream of liquid. Falling against the small bench, she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself trying to comprehend why that blissful heat had disappeared. Reopening her eyes, she saw it spreading all over the floor of her cell.

Esposito tried to soothe her from where he stood, but she shook fitfully where she sat and her eyes were etched with confusion and fear. Surrendering, Esposito took a step back and whispered in to Ryan's ear.  
"This Spider had better hurry."

-CASTLE-

As he stepped off the elevator, Castle barely had time to breathe before he was struck hard over the head and a dark skinned man stepped over him, leaving him dazed on the floor.

What felt like hours later, but in actuality was mere minutes, he heaved himself in to a sitting position and pulled out his phone, dialling Esposito. Hoisting himself on to his feet as he got up, he managed to press the elevator again, falling heavily against the wall as he waited for the doors to open.

-CASTLE-

Kate couldn't quite breathe in the heat. Her breaths got hitched in her throat, and yet somehow she was able to pull in enough oxygen to keep herself upright and conscious. She wasn't so sure it was a good thing though. It'd be easier if she didn't have to be conscious, because then she wouldn't have to be thinking. The things at the forefront of her mind were all things she wished could've been different.

Her father's capture. Her relationship with Castle. The Spider.

In the case of the last one, she wished the situation could've disappeared altogether, thereby eliminating the first along with it. The second was the only real problem – the problem that would stick. The ugly pool of brown liquid on the floor of her cell served as a constant reminder of the fact.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a buzz – she realised it was Esposito's phone as he plunged his fingers in to his pocket. "Esposito," he answered. "What? When – "

_Bang! _A bullet flew past him in to Kate's cell. She screamed loudly, but managed to avoid the bullet, falling in to the pool of coffee. _Bang! _The second bullet ricocheted off the wall and clanged against the bars.

Esposito and Ryan shot blindly at the direction from which the bullets came, to no avail. They could hear footsteps, but they couldn't see. Sight was their best weapon in terms of shooting, but if they kept to where they were safe, Kate would get shot. There was no 'if' about it.

_Bang! _The sounds around her grew louder and louder around her and bars were closing in on her. Her skin suddenly felt cold. She couldn't see or breathe. _Bang! _That was right beside her, she collapsed back against the bars, drained of all will to even try. Her surroundings were blurry. _Bang! _The bulled hit her lower arm and she felt blood oozing from the wound. She fell to the floor.

Where had the return fire gone? _Maybe they're reloading their weapons, _her mind offered. Oh god. If they'd gotten shot it would be on her. Just like everything else that'd happened.

_Bang! _This time there wasn't any bullet, or she would've been dead. Arms pulled around her neck so tightly that she couldn't suck in the slightest bit of oxygen. The sounds around her were deafening, and in the minimal light she knew that Ryan and Esposito dared not shoot for fear of hitting her. She wouldn't have minded right about now anyhow. Asphyxiation. Of all the horrendous ways to die.

Her head was throbbing heavily. There was no air. Her arm seared with an intense, shooting pain. Struggling further to breathe, her neck seared with pain. There were yells from behind her – Esposito, she recognised – but they were so distant she couldn't make them out. She felt the grip around her neck go tighter and she imagined Ryan and Esposito getting closer. Then, all too suddenly, she was released. "Unsolved, File 2873." The whisper was the only thing she heard clearly for it was _his _voice. The Spider had his arms around her yet again.

_Unsolved, File 2873. _What the hell did that mean?

As her vision started to fade she could vaguely make out the sound of Ryan's voice calling to Esposito as there was a jangle of chains and a struggle as the Spider was probably being cuffed.

Feeling an unbearable pain in her arm she looked up to see Esposito's anxious gaze. Then she heard a yell that shocked her in to breathing and sucking in precious air.

"Kate!" The last thing she saw was disproportionate and blurred, but definitive. It was Castle's panicked face sprinting towards her. Then the blackness engulfed her.

**A/N: I really think there is so much unexplored in terms of the Beckett/Esposito friendship and wanted to delve in to that a bit in this chapter. There's so much potential in that relationship and I'm thinking of writing about that if ever I have the time…**

**I wanted to include the coffee as a symbol of their closeness and therefore of how badly Kate has been messed up if she can't comprehend the meaning of it. Also, at long last, the Spider's been caught. About time, or should he have evaded capture yet again?**

**Thanks xteamgibbsx and HCBalwayshappy. What's nice (apart from your reviews!) is that you (and others) are readers that seem to have stuck from earlier on. I like that there's a group (however small) that have followed the story chapter-to-chapter. That's always nice to know. :) Thanks again to you and all other readers.**


	19. Chapter 19

They try to force her in to an ambulance, but she flatly refuses several times over. Only when she starts to panic at all the people swarming around her… all the people touching her… prodding her… examining her… and she screams in her delirium, does Castle reach out to hold her hand and usher all but two of the blue-clad paramedics away from her. He doesn't wish to pressure her, but she's hurt worse than she realises – the angry purple bruising on her neck can attest to this.

"Kate, will you just let them take a look at your neck?" Castle murmurs in to her ear, and she buries herself in to his chest, never wanting to emerge to a world that must despise her.

"No, Castle. Please," she whispers back to him, pulling him closer yet.

Leaning in to her, he motions the two men forwards. "Don't panic. I won't let them hurt you. Just let them make sure you're okay."

Her eyes are closed while they look at her, and they inject her with something to knock her out cold, her fingers still entwined with Rick's. His fingers are still pulled around hers almost two hours from then, when she wakes. He gives her a wide smile and she wants, more than anything to become his Nikki Heat again. Intelligent, robust, indestructible… all attributes that she had to have lost in his eyes by this time.

He steadies her reflexively when she sits up too quickly and she rushes in to through the precinct's doors. The medical personnel are yelling things, or maybe just talking, but it sounds like yelling to her. She ignores them. The only thing on her mind is her father.

And the only one who can tell her where he is is in the interrogation room.

Within seconds, it feels like, she is there looking through the glass. In all the time that Montgomery has been her captain, she has never seen him conduct an interrogation personally, but he is doing so now. From beside her, Ryan and Esposito look startled that she is already back, and Esposito gives her a weary half-smile – God, he must be exhausted – but anything he or Ryan might have said then is cut short by Castle's finger to his lips. He motions in to the interrogation room.

This is the first time she gets a good look at him. Before, it had been poorly lit, or she had been so afraid that she couldn't see straight, but now… now she could observe every minute detail of his face and know she wasn't being watched.

His skin is paler than she remembers, only a slightly darker shade than Esposito's skin. She shudders at the thought. She shouldn't associate her friends with _him. _He was hardly even human. His eyes are darkest brown and piercing – they alone are exactly the same as what she remembers. The rest of his features are hardly noticeable, more or less what you'd expect from any man you saw walking down the street. His head is shaved clean, and he has but slight stubble on his chin.

He has a damned lawyer present, that needn't even be in the room with him. Every question Montgomery fired at him was met with an impassive, stony silence. His gaze was fixed on the wall just beside the mirror. Questions about her, her father, _him _and his background, hell, his bloody _name _all met the same reaction. Even his lawyer seemed to be struggling to find things to say. At long last, Montgomery gave up, walking out of the room and slamming the door hard behind him.

"We've got him nailed. He'll be going away for life," Ryan murmurs in Esposito's direction, but he speaks the thought so loudly that Beckett knows it is meant for her.

Montgomery is visibly enraged as he walks over to the group of them. Never, not once in his many years has he felt this infuriated at a perpetrator. All his training and experience was telling him not to take the case harder than any other, but this man who had so easily sat there defying him had hurt Beckett. He'd taken pleasure in harming the girl he'd watch blossom in to a beautiful, albeit troubled, young woman. Speaking of Beckett…

"What are you doing here? I thought I ordered you to go home, get some rest."

She visibly crumples before him and he immediately feels bad because he knows that look and it is one that he hasn't seen grace her features since her first years on the force when she was still reeling from her mother's death. She is second-guessing herself, wondering whether he was right and she should've gone home and left all this till tomorrow. Just days ago she would've stood up to him, defiantly, shot those words right back at him. "Sorry, sir. I had to… see him."

Heaving a sigh, he regards her gravely. "I can't get him to talk, but I don't want you anywhere near him, Kate, and that's my final call on the matter. Ryan, Esposito, the two of you take point on the investigation to find Jim. Castle, can I have a word with you in my office?"

"Sure."

Castle follows Montgomery in to his office and the minute he steps over the threshold in to the office, the persona of the Captain falls from his shoulders and he is just Roy.

He picks up a photo from beside his desk. It shows a younger Montgomery smiling with his wife and two young children. "This is my family, Castle, my wife, Sara, and our two children, Grace and Joss. Of course, they're all grown up now; a little younger than Kate. I love them more than anything."

"They're very fortunate to have such a great dad," Castle comments quietly, and Roy half-smiles.

"I can only imagine how they would've grown up if Sara hadn't been there. I don't even want to imagine that. How they'd keep on going with no one but each other, though…I know they think about it. I've always been a cop and they used to have nightmares. I'd sit by their beds for hours watching them sleep."

"I know how you feel. I did the same thing with Alexis."

"All of us fathers seem to do that, don't we? What I'm trying to say here is that Kate never had that relationship with her father. She struggled for so long on whether or not she should forgive him and she just managed to make herself do that a few months before you showed up at our door."

That, he certainly didn't know. He had always assumed that her relationship with her father was as tight-knit as they came. Esposito had been right, she played her cards close to the vest.

"Castle, you're a valuable member of the team, but you already know that. Help Kate through this. There's a chance, a very real chance that she is all too aware of, that her father isn't going to be found alive."

"You're still going to do everything you can, though, right?" He hesitated to ask. He knew the answer to that question.

"More than everything. But Castle, I need you to keep her away from this. No investigating on your own, no going rogue on this. If she dives in to this case in this mindset she isn't going to be able to pull herself back out."

"Understood, sir. I'll keep her close." The second sentence is whispered but Montgomery catches it and nods his approval with a knowing smile.

"Sure took you long enough."

-CASTLE-

It had been gnawing at her since the second she woke. _Unsolved, File 2873. _Running her fingers through the shelves upon shelves of case files, she finds the one she is searching for. She prises the papers apart and skims through the first page.

_Oh god._

This can't be right. No. _No. _This is impossible. How could this happen?

For the file in her hands is that of the unsolved rape of Joanna Beckett in March 1979. Almost exactly nine months before Kate had been born.

**A/N: THE L.A. EPISODE IS GOING TO BE SOOOO EPIC! That episode is going to be the death of me – just so you know if you never get another update :) Nah, just kidding, I'll be sure to survive at least until Knockout…**

**Just quickly, about the story: I know that medically (having been drugged and strangled), Beckett would probably have to have gone to the hospital, and Castle would be the first one to make her go, but I want to keep the story moving (hospital scenes would've set it back a couple of notches).**

**I'm so sorry about the quality of my writing, I feel like I'm letting you down by how much worse it's getting. My sleeping schedule has been drastically affected by the tests that are too rapidly approaching.**


	20. Chapter 20

**I used the -CASTLE- thing to shift perspectives to avoid confusion in this chapter, although it's still keeping to the same 'scene' as such.**

She feels so badly like screaming at the top of her lungs. Why? _Why? _For the second time in less than three days she is pointing the end of her gun at herself, only this time there is no one there to stop her or distract her. She is alone and has hidden herself away inside a bathroom cubicle. Now the tears can spill freely from her eyes and the sobs can wrack her body without her having to fear Castle or Esposito or Ryan or Montgomery seeing her. Maybe Lanie, but she didn't often come upstairs unless she and Esposito had a 'chance' encounter, or there was something really pressing regarding a case.

She feels the trigger of the weapon in her fingers, empowering and immediate. As she runs the barrel of the gun against her neck from side to side she lets herself be rocked in to monotony. There's wrong and there's right, black and white. There's the Spider and there's Castle.

She's caught Roy every time he looks her over, an unbearable sympathy in his eyes. He knows that she knows her father is almost definitely dead. And what she had just uncovered… did he know about that as well? He hadn't been at the 12th then, had he? And her father, did he know that her mother had been goddamned _raped?_

She kept hearing the cold, objective words of the file in her head, over and over.

…_no match with any DNA on file… victim refuses to disclose information on work-related conflicts…_

The gun clatters to the floor loudly and she feels the walls of the cubicle closing in on her, reminiscent of the previous night – was it already the next day? – when all the bullets had ricocheted off the walls around her. Absently, she clutched at her arm where he had shot her. The medics had bandaged it tightly, but the pain was still there. She squeezed hard around the wound trying to see how much she could withstand, and she grits her teeth in the effort. The pain sears through her arm and she feels a sharp stab of pain in her head for a split second before she is on the floor, passing the pain for nausea and she heaved spasmodically, throwing up what Esposito had all but forced her to eat the previous day.

A feeling of dread welled up inside her as she pulled out the sketch of the man her mother had ID-ed as her rapist. Her was tall, young, fit-looking with a strong jaw with an arrogance and ease in the way his features were laid out over his face. Without a doubt, he was the same man that sat in the interrogation room now, the same man that had violated her.

Like mother, like daughter, her father had always said. He had no idea how right he had been. And perhaps he would never know. And perhaps he wasn't even her father. Perhaps it had been her father that had assaulted her.

God, she didn't even know anything anymore. Nothing made sense. Everything comforting and certain had been pulled away from her. What was left of her life? What could she be sure of now?

_I'll tell you what,_ a voice whispers to her, sounding surprisingly like Castle's. _You'll hang in there and wait till we get your father back – your real father. Whoever your biological father may be, Jim Beckett is your dad._

When her stomach quietens down, she stands up slowly, not quite managing to keep steady, as a result falling against the side of her small prison. She almost reaches for her discarded weapon on the floor, but changes her mind. That would be too easy – cowardice.

_Oh, whoever would mind? After all, that's just what you are, is it not? A coward. You run away where no one can find you and want to shoot yourself so you won't have to deal with life anymore._ The overwhelming voice of the Spider is pitch-perfect in her mind. _You and your mother and your father – you're all the same breed of animal. Once you're broken you don't do anything about it, you just let it destroy everything that you are and ever could be._

He's right. Now she just lets the tears trickle down her face as if she has known nothing else. And maybe she never has, and this has always just been a suppressed facet of her personality. She doesn't even know herself anymore.

Without realising it, she had been gripping her shot arm tighter and tighter and as she let it go suddenly as the pain all caught up with her, she felt an incredible desire to remove all the pressure from the wound. Unthinking, she unwinds the bandage from the arm, hardly daring to think of whatever consequences it could have.

When she unwraps the entirety of it, the gauze pulls easily from the wound and she stares, fascinated at the blood that slowly pools around the area where the bullet entered her arm. It is on the side of her arm, at just the place that is hardest to see. It's deeper than she thought, and it certainly looks worse than it feels. All she feels is a deep throbbing and as her life-giving blood flows out of her body freely now the bandages have been taken off, she feels a vague sensation of dizziness, as if the life is seeping out of her.

The funny thing is, she doesn't mind in the slightest. In fact, it almost feels nice.

-CASTLE-

Lanie all but sprinted in to the Women's bathroom. All the boys – Esposito, Ryan and Castle – hadn't seen her since they'd spoken to her just outside the interrogation room. Only minutes ago June Satie, a new detective to the unit, had walked up to a frantic Castle telling him she'd heard what sounded like Kate crying in the bathroom. It had taken all of Esposito and Ryan's combined energies to force him to not barge in to the room. Such a situation demanded a gentler tact, and so she had been called up.

June had been right. She could make out Kate's rapid breathing from within the only occupied cubicle, third from the left.

"Kate, honey, are you okay?" She tried, her voice sounding painfully loud and echoing throughout the tiled room.

She found no reply, only more rapid – too rapid – breaths from the compartment. Approaching the door, she put her ear to the end of it. "Kate? Say something to me if you're okay."

Still nothing. There was a slight scraping sound and then the door swung open, revealing a hollow-cheeked brunette.

If ever Lanie had had nightmares about her friends being dying and having to then do an autopsy, she would no longer have to leave it to her imagination to conjure an image of how Kate would look. Her friend was bleeding profusely from the wound in her arm which it looked like she had uncovered herself and her skin tone was palest white. She swayed slightly where she stood and her breathing was uneven and rapid. A gun lay by her feet with the bandages. She looked far thinner than Lanie could ever remember – even since her mother's murder. The first thing she had noticed though, before all that, before even the bleeding was her eyes. They were red from crying and silent tears trickled from them still, despite that, though, they were dead. All the passion, anger, fear, desire, love, was absent from them.

"Oh, honey," Lanie wrapped her arms around Kate and let the taller woman rest against her, rocking her back and forth. Maybe it was a mistake, since it only seemed to make her cry more and such excessive crying could only cause dehydration. But boy did she need the comfort of the hug.

It was Kate that broke it off, twisting her arms free from Lanie's grasp. "I'm so sorry, Lanie. I just had to get away from all that… noise." She squirmed uncomfortably where she stood and Lanie had to resist the urge not to pull her in to another embrace.

"You don't have anything to be sorry about. What you do need to do it get that arm wrapped up again. What were you thinking, taking off the bandage like that? You're going to bleed out!"

Kate's gaze flitted nervously to the door and then back to Lanie's face, boring holes in to her. "Couldn't you do it? I've got an extra gauze with me. I mean, you're an ME, you must have some of that kind of training." Digging in to her pockets, she pulled out a wrapped section of the thin, loosely woven cloth.

Giving a sigh, Lanie relented. "Fine. But in return you're gonna tell me exactly what it was that made you run here." Kate opened her mouth in protest, but she was quickly shushed. "Uh-uh. Don't even try it on me, I know that look you've got on your face. You might be able to fool the others in to thinking whatever else, but I know what it is. You're scared."

-CASTLE-

She recounted the whole story to Lanie, even what she already knew. All the while, Lanie wrapped the bandage back around her arm with her lightest touch, which tended to became the slightest bit aggressive as she learned more and more details about what Kate had uncovered. _Unsolved, File 2873; the rape of Joanna Beckett._ Her friend seemed genuinely horrified to learn of the file and indeed of the rape. Several times, Kate found herself choking back tears. No more tears, she had promised herself. Even when she was telling Lanie about how the man that had raped her mom and her had been the same, she somehow managed to keep the tears back. On the last detail, though, she couldn't stop herself.

"It happened on March 8th 1979. And…well, you know when my birthday is."

Lanie nodded, "December 17th." She had made the connection, of course, judging from the look in her eyes.

"In the medical report included in the file, it said that – " Kate stopped herself. Could she tell her friend about this? She could scarcely even admit it to herself. She couldn't, even.

A reassuring hand on hers relaxed her and she made herself look in to Lanie's eyes and nowhere else. Let herself live only in this moment and not let her mind wander in any way. "Take your time, Kate."

"The report said that my mom was pregnant by the rape."

Lanie's jaw literally dropped right before her eyes. Shock, sympathy, pity were all too evident within them. "Kate… I… You're not his daughter. Your dad is Jim – your mother's husband. Not… him."

"Half my DNA though… it could be his. I've got half of his blood coursing through my veins. How can I live knowing that? Knowing that I'm part of his bloodline?" Her voice was rising in pitch and she felt Lanie drawing her closer and lifting her from her kneeling position on the floor where they'd been talking, steering her to the door. She tried to resist this, but all the suffering her body had been put through had taken its toll and her strength was more than half-drained.

Literally the second she set foot out of the room Castle, Ryan and Esposito were all crowded around her, their moves moving, saying things too quickly or loudly or incoherently for her to catch. Lanie grabbed Esposito's collar and pushed him backwards a bit, and he pulled Ryan back with him. Only Castle hung there right before her.

"Are you alright?" He gulped once, eyeing her bloodied sleeve and how much she seemed to be leaning on Lanie for balance and support. Of course he would have to pick up on that.

She found herself shaking her head for the first time in response to the question. In all the times she had been asked whether she was 'alright' she had never felt so out of sorts as to answer truthfully. She ought to tell him something else though. How his voice in her head was the only thing that had kept her from pulling that trigger and falling in to oblivion… how he was the one constant in a world of variables… "I'm getting there. Look, Castle, I have to tell you something. I – "

"Esposito! We got him! Can you get…" Montgomery's head poked around the corner and drew back for a split second upon seeing Kate there in the room, "Beckett…"

Kate cocked her head at her superior. "Sir?"

Montgomery gave her a consoling smile. "We've got him, Kate. Your father – he's alive."

**A/N: Whoa, 20 chapters in now! And here I thought this story would be over in fewer than 10 chapters, being my first fanfic and all…if you're reading, thanks for sticking with this, I really appreciate it, especially those that review.**

**Okay, so I'm thinking it's out of character for Beckett to be crying so much, but considering the circumstances, I think it's about time that the 'trauma' caught up with her. And I'm sorry about the lack of Castle/Beckett interaction in the chapter. I wanted to give Lanie a moment with 'her girl' since we haven't seen that for a while on _real_-and-far-superior-to-this Castle.**

**Another quick comment from me – don't be too snappy to put the facts from this chapter together and draw conclusions. Hopefully I still have enough twists up my sleeve to trick you once or twice more.**

**I have a special kind-of present for you this time. Last week I was feeling a bit unconfident about my writing, but you were all very kind about it. bpkb mentioned that it would have been nice to have a hospital scene in the previous chapter, so although this probably isn't what you had in mind and skims over a lot of potential detail, this is for anyone that wants it as an insert in to the beginning of the previous chapter:**

She wakes up and the sterile smell of her surroundings again overwhelms her. But there, right before is her constant variable. She's spent many a night in similar plastic chairs overnight in a hospital, but only for those that she loved. _Loved. _The word hits her right in the face, as she looks in to Castle's face, watching him sleep. All things looked younger when they slept, and so Castle did. He had this innocence about him that he usually lost the second he opened his mouth when awake that was somehow captivating.

His hand lay on the covers just inches from hers and she reached over ever-so-slightly to touch it. The very second of that contact, he opened his eyes gazing in to hers with a somewhat dazed expression of concern mixed with relief.

"How are you feeling?" He whispered to her.

She smiled generously at him, before all the memories of the past twenty-four hours started to rush back to her. In the cell… the coffee… getting shot… That had to be why she was in the hospital. Prodding her arm gently, she gasped slightly at how tender the area was.

"Okay?" He asked gently.

She nodded. "Yeah. Did they get him?" By 'they', she meant Ryan and Esposito, and 'him' was self-explanatory by now.

Castle gave her a cautious smile. "They did. Apparently he isn't talking."

"I've gotta see him, Castle. He knows where my dad is."

The writer gave her a rueful smile. "I know. I've got it covered. If the doctor clears you, you're allowed out of here."

The next ten minutes were just bearable because she knew that she could get out of the building if she didn't do anything to suggest pain or discomfort. The doctor seemed to want to prod and examine every part of her to cause her as much pain as to evaluate it.

Castle had brought her a change of clothes that he respectfully left her to get changed in to alone for a few minutes, calling to her a few times in between. When they finally stepped out of the building, he took off his scarf and wrapped it around her shoulders. It seemed to have become a recurring gesture between them.

On the drive to the precinct she doesn't say much. They make some meaningless small talk, but he seems to realise that she needs to steady herself again and figure out where she stands so he gives her time to do that in silence.

The drive takes all of eight minutes and when they arrive he gives her a wide smile and she wants, more than anything to become his Nikki Heat again. Intelligent, robust, indestructible… all attributes that she had to have lost in his eyes by this time.

He steadies her reflexively when she stands up too quickly in her hurry to scramble out of the car. "Thank you," she murmured to him, touching his cheek with the back of her hand in a gesture of intimacy she hadn't shared with any man in a long time, before rushing through the precinct doors. She pushes all the other thoughts, including those of Castle, to the sidelines to focus herself. The only thing on her mind is her father.

And the only one who can tell her where he is is in the interrogation room.

**If you read that, I hope you liked it.**

**I'm thinking of writing some kind of a speculation-fic for 3x24 this week and am not sure I'll be able to write this story. Maybe a short update on this. Would you be interested in reading my guesses on the finale, or do you reckon there'll be enough of that in the Castle fanfiction community without mine added to the mix?**

**Thanks again, and please review!**


	21. Chapter 21

**Please don't hate me for not updating in forever (well, you can a little, but please not to my face). That finale…wow… every time I opened this document, I thought about Montgomery :( and how he still exists here but won't actually be back for real. Ah… sad thoughts. Plus, as I've got only three years till graduating from high school, I've got to focus more on that (my mother translates 'focus' to 'Stop watching Castle!' which will never happen regardless.)**

**Anyway, in case there's anyone new reading this, I started this story before Knockdown aired, so that's why everything is pretty much haywire in this universe.**

**By the way, there's a few moments near the end of this chapter that made me very happy as I wrote them (*wink wink* Caskett *cough*)**

Joanna and Jim Beckett had gotten married in 1977, the picture of a perfect couple. 8th March 1979, Joanna Beckett had been brutally raped and beaten. Then…_ Then what?_ Kate asked herself. December 17th 1979 she had been born. What were the odds?

She was seated on one of those plastic hospital chairs that did your back in badly if you stayed on it for too long. She was long past that point at almost 5am. For three hours she'd sat by her father's bedside. Off and on her chin would droop to her chest and she would let herself claim an odd few minutes of sleep: dreamless, recuperative bliss.

It was okay though. She wasn't worried her father wouldn't open his eyes. He was _here, _right before her, and she wouldn't let him drift away from her now. Not when she was so close to it all being over. Not when the Spider was in lockup and she was… able to function.

The silence was nice. It let her think free of interruption. The only sound, the steady beating of her father's heart echoed by the monitor's beeping was comforting in the semi-darkness. It let her know that she still had family that was living and breathing.

"_Your father has a severe concussion, and several lacerations on his arms and chest area. When he came in his blood pressure was dangerously low, but we're stabilising it now. He should be awake within a few hours, five at most. You can go now in if you want."_

She had done this. Her father was such a blindingly obvious target for attack. Why hadn't she checked in on him? Why had she not even once called him in the evening to check if he was okay? Howhad she _not_? Maybe a few phone calls, or pulling in a favour with Montgomery to send a pair of uniforms to his place, and this wouldn't have happened. It was her fault.

"_It's not your fault, Kate," Castle said gently as he drove the car to the hospital. It was only the two of them as Montgomery had ordered that Ryan and Esposito continue with the investigation. Try as she might to get her car started before Castle caught up with her, she was unable to do so before she all but collapsed in a fit of tears. He had guided her to the passenger side, whispering comforting phrases to her. The first five minutes of the journey she had faded out a bit, still processing the new information that her father was alive. After that she blinked a half-dozen times and brushed away her own tears. Now he turned to look at her again. She hadn't reacted to what he said. "Don't blame yourself for what he –"_

"_Stop it, Castle." She turned away from him. From the flash of her eyes that he caught, he knew that she thought it was her fault._

"_Kate – "_

"_No. I mean it," She turned to face him again, as they slowed to meet a red traffic light. "Look, Rick, this is my father. He's hurt because I couldn't help him and get him the hell out of there."_

_He held her gaze for a split-second before the traffic light turned green. Rather than continuing on the route to the hospital, though, he pulled over by a large grey building she didn't recognise._

"_What the hell are you doing, Castle? Keep going. I have to get to the hospital."_

_Castle reached over and grabbed her shaking, gloveless hands, freshly rewrapped by Lanie barely a half hour ago, and rubbed his warmer hands over them. "You wouldn't be allowed to see him yet even if we got there. You'd just keep beating yourself up over this in the waiting room." Beckett tried to pull her hands back but he held on to them fast. "I'm your partner, Kate. That means I'm with you till the wheels fall off. That I'm going to look out for you in every way that I can."_

_Tears brimmed in Kate's eyes as she looked up at him. "Can you keep driving, Castle?"_

_A wave of anger rushed through him. And he was suddenly crushing her fingers inside his so tightly that she whimpered in pain. "Sorry," he muttered, loosening his grip. She didn't pull away. "I… I love you."_

"_Castle. No." Her eyes were panicked and she looked almost as though she would make a run for it and hail a cab to the hospital. "No. You can't start this. Not now. Please don't."_

"_Wait. I love you. When I tried to tell you when the elevator doors were closing, it was real. You told me, 'I know.' You knew and you… you love me back…"_

_She was shaking her head harder now. "Please, I can't deal with this now, Castle. Don't do this."_

_He pressed on despite her weak protestations. "When I kissed you at the crime scene, it was for real, Kate. I love you and you love me. I can't wait forever."_

_She raised her exhausted eyes to meet his, and nodded slightly. So slightly that it was barely palpable, but it was a nod. "I know." Castle frowned slightly as he remembered the last time she had uttered the two words, and she almost smiled. "Bad word choice. Sorry."_

"_Okay," Castle replied, his face breaking out in to a smile. Realising his hands still enveloped hers, he pulled her right hand up to his cheek, closed his eyes and inhaled, kissing it softly over the bandage._

"_Okay." She smiled at him now briefly before turning back to the road and giving him a meaningful glance. He shook himself slightly and snuck another look at Kate as he twisted the key in the ignition, surprised to find that she was looking right back at him._

_She bit her lip a little, and then narrowed her eyes, "That partner wheels talk, did you get that from Ryan and Esposito?"_

_He nodded ruefully to himself, before conceding her point. "Guilty as charged."_

About Castle, though… Rick… Where to start? There was so much complexity and subtext in every moment they shared. Until now. He had just come right out and said it. He loved her. Of course she loved him back? Why need he even ask? As hard as she had tried to conceal it in the past, all the attempts had been futile. It had been far too obvious in every glance, gesture and word that she wanted him. That she was burning with desire for him.

Shaking the exhaustion from her mind, she looked at her father's face. His eyes were closed and he was sleeping. Peacefully, she hoped. Like she hoped Castle was sleeping too right now. It was doing her head in, how everything was tied with everything. As if to illustrate her point, her hand throbbed painfully, causing her to stand up abruptly in frustration.

"Damn, mom. I wish you were here right now," she whispered in to the darkness. She wished she were at the precinct with a punching bag before her to tire herself out. Better yet, she wished she could sneak in to lockup and beat the hell out of the Spider, whoever he was. Suddenly unable to breathe in the musty hospital air, she stole a last quick glance at her father, before pushing the heavy door open with a lot more force than was necessary.

Castle was right outside the door, sound asleep. She cursed in her mind. She'd told him several times to go home and get some real sleep, knowing all too well how it was to be operating at half-power after having spent many a night on the break-room couch. In her angered state, she wasn't in the mood to wake him and endure another lengthy lecture about blame and where it was appropriately placed.

There was a balcony area to the far left of the floor she was on, and she made her way as quickly as possible without being rude to that part of the building. A few curt nods to nurses she had spoken to briefly and she was outside. Thankfully, there were only two others, a man and a woman, a couple, outside and they surely wouldn't be paying any attention to her.

She moved to the edge of the balcony to the edge furthest from the two who didn't seem to notice her taking in refreshingly deep gasps of fresh air that she hadn't fully appreciated in over a year. Taking a seat on a bench behind her she closed her eyes, letting the wind blow her hair all around her face, enjoying the liberation that came from the sensation. Tears stung her eyes but she didn't let them fall. _No weakness in public, _she reminded herself. She felt the anger surging through her veins. _Why my mother? Why my father? Why _me? She was doubled over where she sat, her eyes screwed shut, her rights hand wrapped around her mother's ring so tight that the miniscule diamond embedded in it dug in to her skin painfully.

"Excuse us, miss, are you alright?" It was the man. The woman stood uncertainly behind him.

She opened her eyes quickly and stood up. "Yes. I'm fine. It's just… hospitals…"

The woman nodded shyly. "I understand. We… both of us do. Our daughter's getting surgery right now two floors down." Sobs started to wrack her body and the man beside her drew her close. "It was a c-car accident."

The man gave her an empty smile and Kate bit her lip. "I'm sorry."

"It was my fault. I… She asked me if I could come and pick her up. I told her to get a cab b-because I was too b…" The woman's voice was cut off by her cries. "Because I was too busy." Kate was struck by her words. At any other time she would have issued her usual words of placing no blame, but right now the words seemed empty, as she had heard them all directed at herself and realised their uselessness.

"No, honey. It wasn't your fault." The man whispered in to his wife's ear.

The woman shook her head fervently, "You understand, don't you?" She muttered to Kate. "I saw it in your eyes. You get the guilt, don't you?"

Kate nodded slowly. "I do. I don't know how to…"

The door to the balcony swung open and a nurse poked her head around the corner. "Mr and Mrs Gardner? They're almost done with the surgery. It's looking good so far."

Mr Gardner exhaled deeply and his wife looked relieved beyond words. Kate gave them a wan smile, before walking back over the bench and sitting down again. Then standing up. Then pacing. Then sitting down again. Restless, she made her way back in the building and through the mazelike halls back to her father's room.

A hand grabbed her wrist before she could enter the room. She found herself looking in to Castle's eyes. "Hey," he murmured. "I woke up and the nurse told me you'd went outside. I thought I'd go down and get you some coffee while you were out. I didn't think you'd want to eat anything right now."

She met his glance full on, before her gaze fell to the two coffees he held in his hands. "Thank you. That's very considerate of you." He pushed the paper cup in to her hand.

"Coffee's hot. Careful with it." He shifted his face to get a better look at hers, but she kept her eyes firmly downcast. "You holding up okay, Kate?"

"Mm. I'm fine." She muttered, her eyes screwing up shut as she felt the scalding coffee trickling down her throat and spluttering slightly.

He grabbed the cup from her hands and put it and his own on a low bench near him. "Hey. It's okay, Kate. Your father's going to be fine." He tried to wrap his arms around her body, but she pulled away.

"I told you, Rick. I can't do this now. I need to get this all behind me first."

He didn't stand down. "Look, Kate. People need love. And you know when they need it most?" He paused and wiped a tear from her cheek. "We need it most when we're suffering. I want to be here for you. That's all I ask. Let me be here for you. Don't be ashamed."

"I'm damaged, Castle. It's hard for everyone around me because I never let them get too close. Even my father, after his alcoholism, I still hate him a little for what he did to me. When we were trapped in that building together, part of me wanted him to suffer. Not die, but feel pain. But even then I knew it would only be a fraction of what I'd felt when he chose the bottle over me. I'm not worth it, Rick. I don't deserve you to be here for m-me. You – "

She was cut off then by his embrace. He shushed her and stroked her hair. "Shh, Kate. You deserve love as much as anyone else in the world. More, even, than a lot of people out there. Calm down, okay. I'll look after you."

Pulling her head up slightly, Rick could see her eyes were red. "Thank you."

"How about I sit with you for a bit inside the room?" It took the nurse a little coaxing, but she agreed to allow the both of them to sit with Jim Beckett for a short while ('You have an hour. No more than that.')

Castle pulled up a chair beside Kate's and let her lean her head against his shoulder, and tried to help her get some sleep, failing rather dismally.

"Oh, stop it, Rick. Just face it. I'm not going to get any sleep right now."

Pursing his lips, he half-nodded to confirm what she had said. "I suppose you're right. What do you want to do, then? I think I saw some cards on sale downstairs. Poker?"

She giggled and shoved his shoulder. "Oh, stop that."

"Stop what?" In his eyes, he was the picture of ignorance. In hers, a sly, clever creature. And someone who loved her.  
"Stop making everything okay. It might not be. My dad might still… still die." She said this in such a nonchalant tone, that if it weren't for the break in her voice in the last sentence, he mightn't have picked up on her absolute terror at this possibility.

Castle squeezed her hand. "Whatever happens, I'm here for you."

The image of innocence, Kate looked up at him with wide eyes. "Always?" It hadn't been stated directly, but it had been inferred many times through their partnership that the word was an affirmation of their closeness.

"Always."

**Thanks for reading. I'm going to try to get back in to my more regular weekly updates and I'll try to make it fortnightly at the latest.**

**Review and make my day :) Thanks.**


	22. Chapter 22

"You _knew!_ How could you know and not say anything?" Kate's hair flew all over her face as she yelled down at her father.

"Katie – "

"No. _No. _Stop it, dad." Tears streaked down her face and she sat down beside his bed. "It's been fifteen years since mom died, and you didn't even think to tell me that you aren't my father?"

"It wasn't like that." Jim said. "It was… it… I don't know how to say this to you, Katie. It's… I wanted to tell you…"

"Stop it. And I mean it, dad." She told him tersely, her eyes hardening. "God, I can't trust any of you, can I? I thought… I thought you were always going to tell me the truth after mom died. You promised me you would. You sat down next to me one year after you got sober and you _promised._"

"I know I did, Katie, and I'm sorry. But – "

Kate stood up abruptly and gazed down at her father, nothing but anger in her eyes. "No. From the moment you picked up that bottle, you weren't my father. I just didn't realise it then. But we're done, dad. You had fifteen years to tell me something that you knew I would find out one day, and you didn't." She fondled her wrist for a moment and decisively undid the fastening of her father's watch and placed it on the table next to his bed. "I can't trust you, dad."

Her father's mouth hung open, and his whole face sagged. "I'm your father, Katie. Not him."

Kate didn't look back at him as she pulled the door open. "Don't call me Katie."

As the door slammed shut, Jim Beckett shouted eight words desperately at the closed door, hoping his daughter would hear them. "Your mom told me not to tell you."

-CASTLE-

_Your mom told me not to tell you._

Why? Her mom had always trusted her implicitly. Her mom had always believed in telling the truth. But what her father said made sense. Her mom had had fifteen years in which to tell her daughter that her father wasn't her real father.

_Your mom told me not to tell you. _

What did that mean? Was her mom going to tell her at some point? God, she couldn't stand this. Maybe fifteen was too young to know._ Yeah, maybe… _Maybes could go on and on in to the gateway to forever.

"Kate? Where were you?" A warm voice greeted her, and arms encircled her shoulders.

She shrugged, deciding it was easier not to care. "Why'd you go?"

After her father – was he her father? – had woken up, she had at first been gentle and every bit the worrying daughter, and a few moments later, she noticed Castle had made a quiet exit from the room. "I thought I'd let you and your dad have your moment alone. If it were me, that's what I would've wanted."

Kate let out a harsh laugh at that, earning her an odd look. "What, Castle? Maybe if you'd been there I might not have…" she choked back a cry. "Oh, damn. This is ridiculous." She started to laugh again. "I have to go, Castle. See you tomorrow." She untangled her arms from his, and made her way to the elevator.

"Wait, Kate! What about your… your dad?"

She turned around and pushed her hair back behind her ears and looked Castle square in the eyes. "I have to go home, Castle."

"Hey." Castle grabbed her wrist. "Where's your dad's watch?"

She closed her eyes for a split second longer than what would be a blink, and in that moment sadness flooded in to her eyes. She grabbed the chain around her neck with the ring hanging from it. "This is all I have left, Castle." _Your mom told me not to tell you. _"But apparently I didn't even have that," she added in a muted whisper.

Castle's eyes narrowed. "You have me. You've always had me." Then he let her wrist go and walked off in the other direction, to sit down outside her father's room.

Kate hesitated momentarily before following. "He knew, Rick," she muttered quietly. Castle looked up, confused, both by what she had said and her use of his first name, so she elaborated. "He knew about my mom. He never told me. Not in the fifteen years after she died. And he said that she told him not to tell me."

"She must have had her reasons."

"That's what I keep telling myself. But I don't know. I don't know, Rick," her voice rose in pitch and volume. "I don't know. I just don't know anything anymore."

He didn't say anything. Just held her hand.

-CASTLE-

Mr and Mrs Gardner and their daughter, Samantha, were walking down the hallway. Samantha had been discharged that day, although still requiring the assistance of crutches to walk.

She didn't realise it at first glance, but at second glance Mrs Gardner noticed the young woman from the balcony yesterday, lying against a man, asleep, if it were possible in such a loud hallway at midday. The man stroked her hair occasionally, and he had a laptop open on his lap.

Noticing Mrs Gardner's glance, the man looked up. She gave him a smile, which he returned.

She took it as a good sign.

-CASTLE-

Kate had insisted on going home alone. She didn't want to see her father. Rick had begged her to let him go with her, but she had planned out everything that she would do.

First take a cab to her apartment. Shower, change, drink some water. Eat, if she could. _Scratch that._ She grabbed a bottle. A large, alcohol filled bottle.

Three hours later, she was giggling to herself. "Vodka. Lots of vodka." The memory made her laugh, but the infusion of the alcohol in to the memory made the whole thing hysterical.

She could hardly keep her eyes open by 7pm. Bed? _Get to it. _What? _Now. _Yeah, she probably should get to bed. _Yeah._

Standing up, she immediately felt herself plummeting to the ground. The bottle cracked and fragments of glass fell about her, fortunately not cutting her skin. The remaining drink left in the bottle soaked in to her carpet, surely to leave a lingering smell for many weeks to come.

-CASTLE-

Waking with a pounding headache, or hangover, didn't happen all too often to Kate. She never drank more than a few wines in a night or had a beer or two with the boys after solving a case. Nonetheless, it was happening now.

She was on the floor of her apartment, lying by the couch in front of her TV. She felt bile rising in her throat from the strong smell of the carpet under her. The shattered bottle was exactly where it had fallen the last night.

Despite her aching, well, everything, she rose to her feet and moved as quickly as she could to the toilet, each movement triggering a greater lurch in her stomach. Upon getting there she threw it up. Once. Twice. A third time. Then she was pretty much okay for a while. She took a look at herself in the mirror. Her skin was a little pale, but then again, when was it not? Her eyes were awful, they would require a lot of work. And her hair… it had the smell of alcohol on it.

_Pound. Pound. Pound. _Her head mocked her. _Shower? _Yes. She ought to shower. _Right? _Yes. Get to the shower.

With careful movements, so as to not move her head, she made her way back to her room and grabbed the first set of clothes her hands met, and made her way back to the bathroom.

The doorbell rang. It made her jump. _So much for not moving your head. _She dropped the clothes where she stood. Really, she didn't care. And why the hell should she? She was done with it. Unsteadily she made her way to the door, and taking a look through the peephole, saw Castle, Esposito and Lanie. Lanie was the closest to the door, and raised her finger presumably to trigger the doorbell again. Kate opened the door before she could do so. The doorbell was so damned _loud._

"You okay, honey?" Lanie murmured, probably quietly, but the sound blasted straight in to her ear, fifty times too loud.

"Yeah. Fine." _No. _She nodded. _Bad idea. _She cringed.

Lanie pushed the door open, and Castle followed her in. Esposito hung back a little awkwardly, but Kate gave him a slight nod, and he too stepped through the doorway in to her apartment.

"Is that" Lanie began in a shocked tone.

"Vodka?" Castle and Esposito finished in unison, before blinking rather awkwardly at each other.

Kate stepped back towards her window and tried to keep the three of them at arms length. _Don't let them see your eyes._

"Why are you here?" She said rather abruptly.

Lanie looked taken aback. "We say, 'is that Vodka?' and you say, 'why are you here?' I think you know why we're here, girl."

Kate blinked. Twice. "Why?" She asked, genuinely dazed.

"Your father, Kate." Esposito said firmly. "Ryan and I went to go and see how you were doin' in the hospital. You weren't there, a nurse said you'd gone home. After Ryan left, I went in to go and see your dad."

Esposito and… her 'dad' knew each other well. Kate had gotten pretty banged up during her third year on the force, taken a bullet to the leg. Her dad had come to see her, and her then partner, Javier Esposito. Esposito had sworn to her dad that he'd have her back from then on. And he'd kept that promise. Day in and day out, he'd kept it.

"Anyway, your dad told me what he told you, and that you'd left his watch behind when you went. He wanted me to bring it to you." He extended his arm, and opened his hand to reveal the watch.

"No. Tell him to take it back. Tell him to sell it. I don't care."

Esposito took a step forward, looking as if he was ready to shake her. "Look, Beckett. That man loves you. He made a mistake years ago, and you've just found out he's made another one. But he _is _your father."  
"No. _No, _he isn't. He lied." Kate tried to say firmly, but it sounded weak, even to her.

It was Castle hanging back now, but now he took a step forwards. "He is your father." He fondled her face gently with his hands, and pushed the messy strands of hair away from her face. "Come on. Sit down over here." He took her hand and led her to the dinner table, crinkling his nose in a childish way at the horribly repugnant smell of the alcohol. She let him control her movements, trusting him implicitly. Several seconds later, she found herself sitting beside him, Lanie on her other side, and Esposito beside her.

It reminded her a little too much of the set-up when Dr Murray had first told her the information that officially reopened her mother's case.

Her mind was foggy, and she didn't realise that Lanie was talking till about five seconds after she had started. Lanie bit her lip when she noticed her best friend's blank glance in to space, whispering something to Esposito, who rose and filled a glass with water. Kate took it numbly and took a small sip.

"Sorry, Lanie. What…?"

Lanie waved her hand in dismissal. "What I was saying is that he is your father."  
"I told you that – "

"No. You listen to me, Kate." Lanie held Kate's eyes for a moment, until she was convinced the detective wouldn't interrupt. "I ran a test. Your DNA against your father's. It's a match, honey."

Kate's mouth slowly opened in shock as she absorbed the information. She realised it wasn't so much that she could be the Spider's daughter – as repulsive as the thought was – but more that her father had lied to her that hurt her.

_Your mom told me not to tell you._

Castle put his arms around her. She was frozen in to place. Lanie and Esposito blurred together before her eyes, or maybe it was through her tears, she wasn't sure. They got closer, and Lanie gave her a hug, and Esposito touched her shoulder, and then they both walked away.

She shook herself out of her reverie. "Esposito…" She choked out.

Esposito gave her an easy nod. He knew what she wanted. He didn't say anything, just put her father's watch on the table before her. Then he and Lanie left.

Castle let her lean against his shoulder. She cried a little and then settled down. Then she just stared in to space. He wasn't worried about her at this moment in time. Crying was normal. People cried when they were upset to heal. Kate was healing.

"Come on, Kate," he pulled her up so she was standing and helped her to the bathroom, grabbed her towel and clothes from the floor and helped her start up a shower.

_Your mom told me not to tell you._

-CASTLE-

"Your mother was repulsed by what happened to her, Katie. It was rape… and it was disgusting. It was the stuff we heard about on the news, but would never think would happen to us… When she found out she was pregnant she broke down. We went through hell then, but she told me from the beginning that she didn't want to raise that monster's child. But after she went through the abortion, she started to realise that she really did want a child. We'd never really considered it before that, since we were both working people. But pretty soon after that, we tried for you. And that was the best thing that we decided to do."

Kate nodded to her father. _I love you, mom. _"Thank you, dad."

**A/N: Please don't stop reading on the account that this is getting slower in pace! The Spider arc isn't over of course. He'll be in an upcoming chapter, hopefully the next, with some more action. And can I say Caskett? I'm not so good with romance, but I'll give it a shot.**

**And like I said before, I started this before Knockdown aired (the week before, in fact,) so the case of Joanna Beckett's murder will be different. I love the way the show has dealt with it, having produced some seriously EPIC television, but I've always wondered about what it'd be like if the whole thing were on a smaller scale, and more personal to Beckett, or to her mother, rather than as a small part of a greater conspiracy. Do you kinda get that?**

**By the way, I've never drank, being well under 16, so I wouldn't know the first thing about alcohol consumption and its effects. (If you have insights, I would be, erm, grateful…?)**

**One final thing: I wrote this one-shot story called Perfection, kind of a tag to Knockout. I'd be grateful if any of you here would give it a read (and a review if you're in that kind of mood). But only if you're in a mood for _another _one of those.**

**Till next time.**


	23. Chapter 23

**Some action! Sorry it's short.**

"Who are you?"

Unblinking, the Spider maintained his composure, staring straight back at her through the bars.

"Why did you kill my mother?"

He cocked his head, enticing her to lash forward, lose the control she had managed to keep over herself. Rick's hand was on her shoulder, the whisper of reason she needed.

"Why did you kill her?"

Intense hazel eyes met the unfazed brown. "You know this is futile, Katie."

"Go to hell." That was Rick, unyielding by her side. She bit her lip and looked away for a moment to retain her mask of composure.

The Spider laughed. He laughed the same laughter as Vulcan Simmons, the dark, empty laughter of the condemned. "You tell her then. Tell your girlfriend that she won't get anything out of this. Tell Katie," he curled the name over in his mouth as though savouring the taste, "that this is over."

Castle tightened his hold on her shoulder, but this time it was unnecessary. Kate smiled at the man, an icy smile to match her demeanour. It had all changed. She was standing taller, similar to the way she stood poised to shoot down a suspect in interrogation.

"I know who you are," she breathed through the bars, so quietly that even Castle beside her couldn't hear. The Spider's eyes narrowed slightly, and he moved his head almost imperceptibly.

"I understand what he meant now. Simmons." Kate walked slowly to the left to leave Rick in her wake. "When I killed him. I didn't understand it at the time. But then again, you had me so drugged up that I could hardly walk straight."

"Katie, you're hardly going to trust his words now…"

Kate banged the bars with her hand, and shook her head in disgust. "You son of a bitch. You know what he said? He said that he understood _why _I was going to kill him. He said he goddamn _understood_."

"He did understand."

"Shut up. He was your brother. That's why you look alike. He told me his own blood would rain down on me. _His own blood._ You told your own brother he would die. I was surprised by how little he resisted. He of all people, I would have thought…"

That made the bastard snap. He wrapped his wrists around the bars and shook them violently. "Don't talk about my brother like that. Vulcan had a hard life."

Kate glared at him. "Tell me why you killed my mother."

"I swear to God, you are going to die not knowing why that bitch died."

"Go to hell." She echoed Castle's earlier words. Rick, who had moved closer, touched her shoulder calmingly. She nodded to a guard that her visit was over, and she rejoined Ryan and Esposito, who stood by the wall. The two had insisted on sitting in on her every meeting with the Spider.

"We have something to go on," Castle began. "He's –"

He was cut off by the sound of a struggle behind them, and the guard, who was meant to force the Spider backwards in his cell, was flung across the floor. His firearm was in the Spider's arm.

"_You will die not knowing," _he spat across the room, pulling the trigger of the weapon and aiming it at Kate's chest.

"No!" Ryan and Esposito, as one, pulled Beckett to the floor beside them. The three unharmed on the ground heard a cry of pain from beside them.

Rick had sprung forwards to take the bullet intended for Kate. His love. His life. Blood gushed from a bullet wound Kate was too enraged to look for.

She lunged for the Spider.

**More. Soon. I hope. **

**Should be within the week.**

**Yes. I know it was short. And yes, I know it took a long time. I'm sorry on both fronts.**

**Thanks for the reviews of the last couple of chapters! Really, thank you! I can't believe I've made a hundred reviews (I never expected that)! **

**Oh, and about Kate's anger at her father. I think it'd be pretty bad if she thought for thirty-something years he'd knowingly lied to her about her paternity. She's not angry that he isn't her father. In my mind, she's angry because he didn't tell her. That's just what I think though. Maybe it was a little severe on her poor dad…**

**Thanks for reading and every review (good or bad) lights up my little world.**


	24. Chapter 24

**Later on, this chapter is a lot of dialogue. I spent a lot of time on it, so I hope it's okay :) Also, it's a longer one. Stick with this chap till the end, pretty please. It'll pay off. I promise!**

She'd caught him off guard. Ryan and Esposito too, who had rushed over to Castle, fallen from a bullet wound to the shoulder. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that the Spider had to suffer.

His hold had loosened on the trigger of the gun that had shot Castle – Rick. Savagely, achieving a strange euphoria from each grunt of pain she was able to force from the larger man, she beat the gun from his fingers, grabbed his wrists and pulled him towards her so all his weight crashed against the unforgiving bars of lock-up.

"Damn you, bitch," he snarled through the bars. Kate smacked her closed fist up across his face, breaking his nose. A sneer of delight lit her face. A hand curled around her wrist, preventing any movement on her part.

The spell was broken. The room darkened and she noticed the dark blood streaking down her hand that belonged to _him._ "Castle…?" She turned, half-expecting to see the man she had watched fall barely a moment ago. It was Esposito. She turned around further, to see Castle sitting up, Ryan having taken off his jacket and letting it soak up the blood – god, there was a lot of it – from the shoulder wound.

"Your boyfriend was lucky this time!" There was a yell from behind her, but Kate disregarded it this time, rushing up to Rick's side.

He had a distinctly childlike look on his face, the kind of face a child might make if a particularly large and unfriendly wasp had bitten them. There was an edge of seriousness to it, however. Kate had hardly ever seen Rick in genuine physical pain, but now was one of these instances.

Wordlessly, she took over from Ryan who let her do so without complaint. "Castle, can you walk? I think it'd be better if we got out of this room."

"Couldn't agree more." Rick, with Kate on one side, and Esposito on the other, hoisted himself to his feet, grimacing in pain, as Ryan signalled for the numerous police officers who had just flooded the lock-up area to address the commotion to get the Spider back and cuff him to the back wall of the bar while he called for the EMTs.

-CASTLE-

"Hey stranger," Kate murmured as she pulled the curtains of the ER back to slide in to his small compartment of it. Alexis and Martha had both just left to get something to eat, it having been several hours since they had come in. Kate had been observing from afar, watching, waiting for the two redheads to leave. She didn't think she could explain anything to them and it killed her that she had almost cost Alexis her father, Martha her son.

Thankfully, Rick had suffered only minor injuries. The wound having been dressed and disinfected by medical staff, he was almost clear to go.

"Hey," he broke in to a smile. "You okay?"

She nodded, giving him a somewhat disbelieving look. "You've just been shot, and you ask me if _I'm _okay?"

"You're avoiding the question."

"I'm okay."

Rick nodded, apparently satisfied. "Okay."

They lapsed in to silence. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it wasn't an easy silence like Kate had hoped.

"You just missed my mother and Alexis, you know. They were wondering where you'd gone."

Kate shrugged. "I was… at the precinct. Finalising some stuff."

"I saw you, Kate. You kept poking your head around the corner. You were waiting for them to leave, weren't you."  
She said nothing. Rick's stare pierced her.

"They don't blame you, Kate. It was my fault I got shot."

"I'm the cop, you're the writer. You aren't supposed to get hurt protecting me, Rick. That's… convoluted. It shouldn't happen."

Rick laughed. "Well, there's the universe for you," he paused, before continuing, "I'll have you know, Kate, that Alexis and my mother would much rather I took a bullet to the arm than you having been shot and killed."

"But –"

"There's no but about it." He lightly touched the bandage on his shoulder. "This can heal." Leaning forwards, he cupped her face with the hand of his good arm. "Losing you, I couldn't. Ever."

She took his hand, and kissed it deeply, eyes closed.

"You gotta learn to look for the silver lining, Kate. We match!"

Her eyes shot open and she eyed him questioningly. In reply, he pushed up the sleeve of her t-shirt slightly, and caressed the thin bandage that still covered the light wound of her arm from where the Spider had shot her.

"Yeah. It's great news. We've both been shot now. We should start a public holiday." Her voice dripped with sarcasm. She looked downwards for a fraction of a second before eyeing him more seriously. "Can I ask you something, Castle?"

He noted the use of his last name, but nodded. "Any time."  
"I… What am I doing? What's happening to me?"

Castle, shocked, responded, "What do you mean, Kate?"

"I don't know. I don't know at all. You could've been hurt badly, Rick. You could've been _killed _– "

"Whoa. Slow down – "

She cut him off. "I couldn't have known at the time whether you would've been okay or not. When I was hurting… _him… _I felt better than I have in a long time. Every time he grit his teeth in pain, I wanted to make him do it again… It's sick. I'm like another one of those criminals that I arrest day after day, enjoying the pain I inflict… I should have been at your side, Rick. I should have been making sure you were okay, that you'd be fine."

Rick shifted his hand, so it was his covering hers. "You're a good person, Kate. And a good cop."

When Kate next met his eyes all the smokescreens and the strength was filtered out of her, leaving only her underlying self at this moment. A vulnerable, frightened young woman, fragile, pushed to breaking point. "Am I a bad person for wanting to kill him?"

Rick pushed her hair out of her eyes and shook his head. "Maybe." Her eyes filled with fear. "I don't think you're a bad person, Kate. As a novelist, I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes a bad person bad, and I'm sorry to say it, but I don't think you have what it takes."

A short laugh tore itself from her lips. She nodded at him. "Thank you. For everything."

Castle opened his mouth to reply, but before he could the curtains opened and Martha and Alexis were revealed, both carrying sandwiches.

"Oh, are we interrupting?" Martha asked in a delightful tone.

"No," Kate replied, standing up. "I should get back to the precinct now."

Alexis shook her head. "No, detective Beckett. Don't leave because of us."

"I'm sorry your father was shot, Alexis." Kate bowed her head.

Martha gave her son a playful tug on the ear. "Oh, he's fine. The doctor says you're ready to be discharged. Would you care to join us for a while, Kate?"

"Oh, no. Really. I have to go." She turned to leave, but Castle called out after her. "What, Castle?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

-CASTLE-

Rick walked off the elevator on to the homicide level of the precinct. His mother and Alexis had both tried to prevent him from coming tonight, but he had insisted. He had to talk to Kate again.

"Rick?" Her voice surprised him. Blinking away the darkness, he saw she was sitting on her desk, coat wrapped around her shoulders, in front of the murder board.

"I was hoping you weren't still here."

"Couldn't sleep. Looking at the board calms me down."

Rick made a face. "Makes sense."

"It helps me remember that there are other murders. Other people that feel this way, and other people that I can help stop feeling the way I do. It's almost comforting."

He nodded. "Makes sense. Any leads?"  
The murder in question was one that Ryan and Esposito had taken point on. She hadn't been able to focus on it. A florist killed in her own store, flowers strewn about the floor. She'd had an angry ex-boyfriend, but it seemed too obvious and too soon.

"No. Still thinking."

"Need a hand?" He leaned against the table next to her.

She stood up at the same moment and looked at him. "You were stupid, you know. I was thinking about it again while I was driving over here, and you were really stupid. Ryan and Esposito pulled me down in time. The bullet wouldn't even have hit anyone if you hadn't jumped in front of it."

Rick smiled at her, she really didn't get it, didn't she. "I couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to you, Kate. Of losing you – never seeing you again, your smile, your beautiful eyes." His voice cracked.

Kate hesitated, but sat back down on her desk, leaning her head in to his shoulder. "That's just about the sweetest thing anyone has ever said or done to me."

He stroked her cheek. "I did it because I love you, Kate."

There was a long pause. She continued to gaze ahead at the victim's photo. "You… you love me? Are you… are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Kate." It amused him a little that she was confused.

"I think I love you too. I'm not so sure though. I want so badly to be sure, but I don't know if I can be. I'm messed up, Rick."

He continued to fondle her face. "Maybe a little. But aren't we all? It's okay. This is tough. We can work through it together though. I can help you get through it."

She pulled away again and looked him in the eye. "Do you want to have sex with me?"

Rick's hand fell to his side. "Whoa, that as unexpected. Like, seriously?" His voice dropped in pitch and he leaned in towards her in a typically Castle-like way. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. It's okay if you say yes. Tom and Josh were all about that and I thought they wanted more."

It was Rick who pulled away now, stepping backward several paces. His voice rose in his anger. "Is this all you think this is? All it ever was? Some cheap attempt to get sex?

Kate backed away. "What? No. No, Rick. Of course not. I just had to be sure. I thought the same thing about Tom and Josh, but it ended up the way it did. But I never thought that about you. Never." Rick gave her a look, and she continued talking a lot faster than when she had started. "Well, except maybe for the first case. But that wall all. I mean, you more than proved to me that you were genuine time after time, case after case."

Rick nodded. "Well, I'm glad you think so." He paused, leaving her hanging, before stepping forward, a sparkle in his eye. "You know, it's adorable seeing you so flustered…" He paused again, and the spark dissipated. "Was I really ever that playboy?"

"No. I don't think you were." Kate smiled at the memory of the Rick of the first few cases. "You were just being yourself, joking and fun. I was the one that kept being fake, kept lying to you and hiding things." It was her turn to pause, and she did so for such a long time that Rick thought she wasn't going to keep speaking. "I… I don't want to lose you like the others, Rick. The other men have all just been sex, physical gratification, pure and simple. I don't know how to give you more, like you deserve."

Rick took her hand in his. "Well, in that case, detective Beckett, I would be more than happy to teach you all about… _romance._" He spoke the line with his classic dramatic flair.

Kate's eyes filled with tears, and Rick lifted her face to meet her eyes. She shook her head slightly. "There you go again, Rick. Being so sweet to me… Romance…" Her eyes became all glossy and she stared in to his again, her mouth making an 'o' shape. "Wow."

He winked at her playfully. "If you prefer, we could go about it backwards." He shrugged. "I'm all for it."

Kate stepped away from him and he feared for a moment that he had stepped out of line, but to his bewilderment, Kate had pulled off her navy v-neck, revealing the black bra underneath. "If you say so, Rick." She kissed him on the lips.

"Whoa, Kate." She kissed him again, harder, longer. "Kate…" Another kiss, firm on the lips.

She leaned back for a fraction of a second. "Shhh, Rick. It's okay."

He gave in at last. "If you say so," he whispered right back to her through their kisses. He felt her nimble fingers unbuttoning the shirt her wore, and the two let the fabric fall to the floor, lost in the perfect world of the love they shared.

**A/N: Oh, if only…**

**I'm sorry it's out of character for the both of them. But, well, Kate's a little upset over her mom's case, and Rick's kinda in shock after being shot… Right? Right?**

**Anyhow, it was fun to write.**

**Like I said before, I am under sixteen, and have never written a make-out scene before. Sorry if it's unrealistic. I'm sure the real Castle one will be unrivalled in its sheer epicness. Gosh, I can't wait till September.**

**By the way, I don't think Montgomery will appear in the story again. I'm feeling a little sad about how he won't be in the show again, so I don't think he'll pop up anytime soon in this story. I guess you never know though.**

**That rage from Kate earlier in the chapter stems from what we saw in the LA ep, and Knockdown l. I think Kate is interesting in that while she seems so perfect and controlled in most episodes, sometimes she is really unhinged and that raw emotion shines through.**

**Final thing, I didn't want to injure Castle badly because of Martha and Alexis. I find it hard to write for the two of them and all I really wanted to do with Castle getting hurt is capture that he's willing to do whatever it takes to protect her.**

**Next update will be over a week from now. I have stupid school camp for a goddamn week from tomorrow. I'll be thinking of Castle ;)**

**Please review, and thanks so much to bpkb and cajun panda for reviewing the last chapter!**


	25. Chapter 25

**If you haven't read the story and just skipped to this chapter to see whether it was something that could sustain your interest, it was a bad chapter to skip to. Try chapter 6 :) If you've stuck with it this far, coolios. Read on if you can bear it.**

**I know I have getting A/N chapters, but as the author, I kind of understand the necessity of it now. I re-read Chapter 24 countless times and every time came to the same conclusion: It was awful. I botched it massively in my rush to post it before I left. I'm as much for Caskett as the next Castle fan, but it was a _very _bad getting-together for them.**

**So I am going to request something of the readers of this story. I want you to tell me what you want to see. And this isn't a dimwitted plea for reviews or anything. Do you want:**

**1. This story to just keep going with chapter 24 included because you didn't mind it so much because they _got together_**

**2. Chapter 24 rewritten. That may be the only way to save the story.**

**3. This story to _frickin' end already! _It's getting slow and boring, and long past the climax. (Hopefully if you think this, you can phrase it in a way that doesn't bruise my ego so much. I may cry.)**

**4. Something else my school-overloaded brain can't think of. Or a specific thing.**

**Please respond to this, through reviews (anonymous if you want) or PM. I'm not sure how to continue, and I don't want to do something completely contrary to what you want to read. I'll do my best if I know what you want to read.**

**Thanks for sticking it this far. Hopefully this story can be hauled back on track, with your help. Thanks again (or _cheers, mate _in my native Australian).**


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